US President Donald Trump says he will sign an executive order this week meant to create a single national rulebook for AI in the country, replacing a patchwork of different state laws.
“There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI. We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won’t last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS. THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT ABOUT THIS!” he wrote on TRUTH Social. “AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY! I will be doing a ONE RULE Executive Order this week. You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something. THAT WILL NEVER WORK!” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
OpenAI, Google, Meta, and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz have called for national AI standards saying the laws stifle innovation, and arguing that the States will fall behind China on AI development if states are allowed to regulate the technology.
However, in a YouTube video, Trump said: “We’re leading artificial intelligence by a lot. We’re writing rules and regulations. We want to keep it at the federal level so it’s simple for the companies.”
The US is Leading the Industrial Revolution
Michael Bell, Founder & CEO of Suzu Labs, commented: “We’re witnessing an industrial revolution, and the US is currently leading. That lead isn’t guaranteed. China is investing aggressively in AI infrastructure, and the EU is building comprehensive regulatory frameworks that could set global standards. In that context, reducing domestic regulatory friction makes strategic sense. You can’t win a technology race while fighting 50 simultaneous compliance battles.
Bell said the Trump administration’s move to pre-empt state AI laws is fundamentally about velocity, getting American AI companies to market faster with fewer obstacles.
“That’s a legitimate competitive priority. The bipartisan pushback, including from Governor DeSantis calling it “federal government overreach,” reflects real concerns about what gets lost in the rush: state-level experimentation, consumer protections, and the ability to respond quickly to emerging harms.”
Not Whether We Regulate, but How
Bell added that from a security perspective, the key question isn’t whether we regulate AI, but how. “Supply chain integrity, model provenance, adversarial manipulation, and data handling practices determine whether AI systems are secure, not just competitive. A streamlined national framework that establishes clear security baselines while cutting redundant compliance burden is the best of both worlds. A framework that prioritizes speed over security just creates a different kind of competitive disadvantage: systems that can be weaponized by adversaries.
“The ideal outcome is a national floor that establishes minimum security and transparency requirements while allowing states to respond to novel risks as they emerge. The worst outcome is regulatory paralysis, either 50 conflicting state rules that strangle innovation, or federal preemption that creates a compliance vacuum. Right now, the administration is betting that unified national policy enables faster, better AI development. Whether that bet pays off depends entirely on what the actual rules require.”
Information Security Buzz News Editor
Kirsten Doyle has been in the technology journalism and editing space for nearly 24 years, during which time she has developed a great love for all aspects of technology, as well as words themselves. Her experience spans B2B tech, with a lot of focus on cybersecurity, cloud, enterprise, digital transformation, and data centre. Her specialties are in news, thought leadership, features, white papers, and PR writing, and she is an experienced editor for both print and online publications.
The opinions expressed in this post belong to the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Information Security Buzz.