【Epoch Times, November 19, 2025】President Donald Trump urges Congress to put an end to the excessive regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) by states in the United States. Trump warned that the patchwork of state-level regulations is threatening the American economy and that without unified standards, China could catch up with the U.S. in the technology competition.
The Trump administration has prioritized defeating China in the AI race. After returning to the White House in January, Trump ordered the government to develop an action plan with the goal of making the U.S. the “global capital of artificial intelligence” and reducing regulatory barriers to foster rapid AI development.
On Tuesday, November 18, Trump wrote on the social platform Truth Social: “Investment in AI is helping the U.S. economy become the ‘hottest’ in the world, but the excessive regulations by states are threatening this crucial engine of growth.”
“Some states are even trying to embed DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) ideology into AI models, creating so-called ‘woke AI’ (remember that ‘African American George Washington’?),” Trump stated.
“We must have a federal standard instead of 50 disjointed state-level regulatory systems. If we fail to do so, then China will easily catch up with us in the AI competition,” he wrote.
He suggested that U.S. lawmakers could include relevant provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) or pass a standalone bill to address these issues.
As Trump made the above comments, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives signaled that they might try to include AI preemption language in the NDAA to prevent individual states from setting AI rules.
House Majority Leader and Republican Representative from Louisiana Steve Scalise stated on Monday that Republicans are considering this measure to prevent what he called “regulatory chaos” as states move forward with their own rules.
Trump’s push for a unified national framework aligns with his broader “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan.”
According to the plan released in July, federal agencies must avoid selecting systems that “sacrifice truthfulness and accuracy for ideological agendas” when procuring AI systems. They must adhere to “Unbiased AI Principles” and support actions against AI-generated “deepfake” content through the Take It Down Act.
Vice President JD Vance echoed Trump’s stance at the “Artificial Intelligence Action Summit” held in February this year.
Vance said at the time: “We believe that excessive regulation of the AI industry could stifle it at the very moment this transformative industry is about to take off.”
However, efforts to include federal preemption provisions in the defense legislation have faced pushback from some lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Democratic Senator Brian Schatz called the potential provision a “poison pill” and vowed to stop it.
Republican Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis also publicly opposed the measure, warning that restricting state authority would be a subsidy for large tech companies.
DeSantis expressed concern that this move would prevent states from protecting citizens, avoiding political speech censorship on the internet, combating predatory apps targeting children, curbing intellectual property infringement, and preventing disruptions to power and water resources by data centers.
This is not the first time Republican lawmakers have tried to block states from enacting AI regulations.
Previously, a provision aimed at suspending state-level AI legislation for ten years was included in Trump’s tax and spending bill but was eventually removed in the Senate with a vote of 99 to 1.