A look at draft AI policies from Trump allies at the America First Policy Institute and the Heritage Foundation against “unnecessary and burdensome regulations”
[images] X: Cat Zakrzewski / @cat_zakrzewski : The plan to ‘make America first in AI’ would favor Silicon Valley investors, who are now flocking to support the former president. Cat Zakrzewski / @cat_zakrzewski : NEW: Trump's allies are drafting a sweeping AI executive order that would launch a series of “Manhattan Projects” to develop military technology and immediately review “unnecessary and burdensome regulations.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
This draft placed AI policy inside a broader America-first agenda: pairing deregulation with federally backed development of military technology, while signaling a more favorable posture toward Silicon Valley investors.
It foreshadowed a later AI Action Plan that sought to roll back Biden-era bias and cybersecurity measures and, later still, an order examining whether federal funding could be used against states with stringent AI rules.
First-order effects
- The draft gave Trump-aligned policy groups and supportive investors a concrete agenda: review AI rules seen as burdensome and direct federal attention toward military AI development.
- Because it was a draft rather than an adopted order, its immediate effect was to signal prospective priorities—not to change compliance obligations.
Second-order effects
- AI companies and investors would have an incentive to position growth, defense, and deployment plans around a looser federal regulatory posture if the agenda moved into government.
- States pursuing stricter AI safeguards could face a sharper federal-state policy conflict, a tension later reflected in the funding review aimed at states with onerous AI laws.
Third-order effects
- If carried through, this approach would make AI governance less about stand-alone safety oversight and more about using federal policy to accelerate domestic commercial and military capacity.
- The durable fault line would be whether national competitiveness can be pursued through regulatory rollback and industrial support without fragmenting oversight between Washington and the states.
The trend: This is an early marker of state-aligned AI industrial policy that treats regulatory restraint and strategic capacity-building as complementary tools of competition.