Trump's AI Strategy: More Hype than Substance

Overview of Trump’s AI Initiatives

On Wednesday, President Trump unveiled three executive orders, delivered a speech, and released an action plan focused on maintaining American leadership in artificial intelligence (AI). The action plan organizes dozens of proposals around three pillars: accelerating innovation, building infrastructure, and leading international diplomacy and security. While some proposals are thoughtful or incremental, others appear ideologically driven or favor large tech companies. However, the plan itself consists only of recommended actions without binding force.

Executive Orders Put Plan into Action

The three executive orders put into practice a subset of the plan’s proposals:

• Preventing 'Woke AI': The government will only procure large language models considered “truth-seeking” and “ideologically neutral,” avoiding those allegedly biased towards diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
• Accelerating AI Data Centers: This order promotes rapid construction of AI data centers by waiving environmental protections, offering government grants to wealthy companies, and providing federal land for private use.
• Exporting US AI Technologies: It supports and finances the export of American AI tech and infrastructure to maintain diplomatic leadership and reduce reliance on AI from adversarial countries.

The Disconnect Between Actions and Foundations

Despite the high-profile announcements, these moves obscure the fact that the administration is undermining the foundational policies that enabled American AI leadership.

Four Pillars Behind US AI Leadership

1. Federal Investment in R&D: Since the 1950s, federal agencies such as the Defense Department, NSF, NASA, and NIH have funded AI research, breakthroughs in machine learning, neural networks, and foundational hardware like lithium-ion batteries and microchips. The current administration is cutting nondefense R&D funding by 36% and reducing support for federal scientists and universities.

2. Immigration and Talent Attraction: Immigrants have been vital to AI innovation—many founders of leading AI startups and companies like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft are immigrants or children of immigrants. Recent anti-immigration policies risk reversing this advantage.

3. Banning Noncompetes: Labor mobility fuels innovation, exemplified by Silicon Valley’s history of employees leaving to start new companies. California’s prohibition of noncompete agreements has encouraged this fluidity. However, federal efforts to ban noncompetes nationally face legal challenges that may limit future innovation.

4. Antitrust Enforcement: Past antitrust actions against AT&T, IBM, and Microsoft fostered competitive markets that spurred innovation. Current signals suggest that antitrust efforts may be weakened, potentially harming AI market competition.

The Path Forward

Maintaining US leadership in AI requires investing in public research, welcoming global talent, and ensuring fair competition. Prioritizing short-term industry profits and ideological agendas over these principles jeopardizes both America’s technological future and its global innovation leadership.

Asad Ramzanali is director of AI and technology policy at Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator and former chief of staff at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Biden.