Updated on: December 11, 2025 / 9:11 PM EST / CBS/AP
President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at limiting states’ ability to craft their own artificial intelligence regulations, saying a patchwork of state rules could hamstring U.S. competitiveness with China.
The order instructs the attorney general to assemble a task force to challenge state laws and directs the Commerce Department to compile a list of problematic state regulations. It also threatens to restrict funding from a federal broadband deployment program and other grant programs for states that adopt certain AI laws.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that nations are racing to dominate AI and that the U.S. needs a single, streamlined approval path the way Chinese companies have one central government regulator. “We have the big investment coming, but if they had to get 50 different approvals from 50 different states, you can forget it because it’s impossible to do,” he said, adding, “there’s only going to be one winner.”
David Sacks, a venture capitalist advising Trump on crypto and AI policy, said the administration would target only “the most onerous examples of state regulation” and would not oppose measures aimed at child safety.
Four states — Colorado, California, Utah and Texas — have passed laws that set some rules for AI in the private sector, according to the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Those laws include limits on collecting certain personal information and requirements for greater transparency. Many other states have pursued narrower AI rules, such as banning deepfakes in elections and for nonconsensual pornography or regulating government use of AI.
Supporters of federal preemption, including some GOP lawmakers and tech advocates, argue that varied or conflicting state rules could force companies to create multiple models for different jurisdictions, stifling innovation and disadvantaging smaller startups. “At best, we’ll end up with 50 different AI models for 50 different states – a regulatory morass worse than Europe,” Sacks wrote on X, warning it would slow innovation while China advances.
But the move has critics across the political spectrum. When Republicans considered adding similar preemption language to a defense bill, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called it a “subsidy to Big Tech,” arguing that denying states the ability to shape AI policy is federal overreach. Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts criticized Trump’s executive order as an “early Christmas present for his CEO billionaire buddies.”
The debate highlights a central tension in U.S. AI policy: balancing the desire for a single national framework to promote competitiveness with calls from lawmakers, civil liberties groups and consumer advocates for stronger, localized protections against bias, privacy invasions and other harms as AI systems increasingly affect hiring, housing, lending and health care decisions.
