Trump says AI regulation should be kept to 'minimum' to stay competitive with China

President Donald Trump said the United States should keep regulation of its AI industry to a minimum, citing the need to remain competitive with China in the race for AI dominance. In a CNBC interview at the White House on Wednesday (local time), Trump said some safeguards for AI are necessary but that he wants them "as minimal as possible," according to Bloomberg. "We can't be tying the hands of American companies that are competing with China," he said, signaling that he would prioritize industrial competitiveness over regulation. Trump made clear, however, that he was not ruling out all oversight. "If there are bad players and we determine they're dangerous, we will shut them down very quickly and effectively," he said, adding that there had been recent examples of such action, though he did not identify any specific company. Bloomberg noted the remarks may have been a reference to a recent dispute between the Commerce Department and AI company Anthropic. The Commerce Department last month imposed export controls restricting foreign access to Anthropic's latest AI models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, citing national security concerns, only to reverse the measures 18 days later. The move had rattled Silicon Valley, Bloomberg said, given that the Trump administration had until then maintained a relatively deregulatory stance toward the AI industry. The interviewer also asked Trump about a Financial Times report on discussions over the US government acquiring a stake in OpenAI. The FT had earlier reported that OpenAI was in talks with the Trump administration about offering the US government a stake of roughly 5 percent. Trump did not address OpenAI directly, instead pointing to the government's acquisition of a 10 percent stake in Intel last year. "That investment brought strong financial benefits to American taxpayers," he said, while declining to answer whether the administration would take a stake in OpenAI. Trump had said last month that leading AI companies should give back to the public, and that the government was exploring acquiring stakes in major AI firms. Bloomberg assessed that the Trump administration is maintaining its broad push to minimize AI regulation while leaving the door open to government intervention in areas touching national security and the public interest.