Trump Unveils National AI Policy Blueprint: States Blocked from Regulating

The Trump administration on Friday released its legislative blueprint for AI regulation in the United States, and the message is clear: the federal government should avoid most AI rules beyond child safety, and states should be barred from enacting laws that interfere with the national strategy to achieve global AI dominance.

The seven-point document is addressed to Congress as a set of recommendations. It calls for stronger protections for minors using AI services, action to prevent electricity costs from rising due to AI infrastructure, and youth training programs for AI tools.

The most contentious provision is the push to limit state-level AI regulation. This continues a long-running Republican position aimed at preventing 50 different state laws from creating a fragmented compliance landscape for the technology industry.

The plan also maintains a wait-and-see stance on whether training AI models on copyrighted material without permission is legal — a question with major implications for publishers, news organizations, the music industry, and film studios.

Crucially, the entire document is advisory. It only takes legal effect if Congress adopts it into legislation and passes it into law.

For businesses in Europe and beyond, the stakes are significant. A lighter regulatory touch in the US, combined with the EU's tightening AI Act, creates an asymmetry that could benefit American AI companies while raising compliance costs for European competitors. The global race to set AI's rules is increasingly becoming a defining geopolitical contest.