Trump is taking a hands-off approach to AI regulation to preserve the US lead over China, ahead of a summit with Xi Jinping, where AI safety is a top issue
In June 2024, during a campaign stop in Las Vegas, then-candidate Donald Trump got a glimpse of the technology that would come to define his second presidential term.
Context & Ripple Effects
The administration’s policy arc has not been uniformly deregulatory: its 2025 AI Action Plan sought to unwind Biden-era bias and cybersecurity measures, while July reporting described restrictions on leading AI models after an initially light-touch posture. The distinction emerging here is between limiting safety-oriented constraints and using government power where officials see a competitive imperative.
AI safety is also becoming a point of contrast with Beijing. China’s 2025 World AI Conference emphasized international cooperation on AI safety, while Trump’s approach treats U.S. technological leadership as the priority entering talks with Xi Jinping.
First-order effects
- The Trump administration enters the Xi Jinping summit with a competitiveness-first AI position, reducing the political weight it gives to safety-led domestic regulation.
- U.S. AI developers gain a clearer signal that federal policy will prioritize preserving their competitive latitude over expanding safety constraints.
Second-order effects
- AI safety advocates and lawmakers pressing for stronger guardrails face a White House argument that such measures risk weakening the U.S. position against China.
- Negotiations with Beijing are more likely to frame AI safety through strategic rivalry, making shared safeguards harder to separate from each side’s industrial interests.
Third-order effects
- If this posture holds, U.S. AI governance will increasingly divide into permissive rules for domestic development and selective intervention around strategically sensitive models.
- The larger policy contest becomes one of AI sovereignty: safety standards are judged not only by risk reduction, but by whether they alter national competitive advantage.
The trend: AI governance is shifting from a standalone safety debate toward state-directed competition over technological leadership and strategic control.