Trump White House AI Plan: Strong Start, States a Threat?

Originally published on Substack.

The Trump White House just released its new AI policy framework, and for once, Washington didn’t lead with panic.

That alone is progress.

For years, the conversation around artificial intelligence has been dominated by fear—fear about jobs, kids, misinformation, and control. And when policymakers operate from fear, they tend to rush into doing something—usually something heavy-handed.

This framework is different. It leans toward innovation, growth, and leadership.

The real question now is whether lawmakers across the country will follow that lead—or regulate this opportunity away before it fully arrives.

Because make no mistake: this is not just another tech trend.This is the early stage of the next economic revolution.

More Than a Buzzword

Let’s clear something up.

AI is not some mysterious force. It’s advanced computing—the continuation of tools we’ve used for decades in search, logistics, fraud detection, finance, and medicine. What’s changing now is the scale and speed.

That matters because it means AI will touch nearly every part of the economy.

We’ve seen this kind of moment before. The agricultural revolution transformed how we produced food. The Industrial Revolution reshaped labor and production. The digital revolution changed how we communicate and exchange information.

Each time, people feared what was coming. Each time, politicians felt pressure to step in and manage the transition. And each time, the real progress came not from top-down control, but from bottom-up experimentation.

Markets didn’t get everything right—but they adapted, learned, and improved far faster than any centralized plan ever could.

That’s still true today. Markets are far better at discovery than governments are at prediction.

A Better Direction from Washington

To its credit, the Trump framework reflects that reality.
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It focuses on empowering parents, protecting children, supporting creators and intellectual property, defending free speech, and preparing workers for a more dynamic economy. It also makes clear that America should aim to lead—not slow down—the development of AI.

That’s a welcome shift.

It avoids the worst instinct in policymaking: assuming that because something is new, it must be tightly controlled.

And importantly, it does not follow the path of proposals we’ve seen elsewhere—from U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn at the federal level to various state efforts like by Texas Senator Angela Paxton—that push toward app store mandates, platform controls, or restrictions on infrastructure like data centers.

Those ideas are built on a simple but flawed premise: that government knows better than parents, entrepreneurs, and consumers.

It doesn’t.

Where Things Go Wrong: The States

If there’s a real risk to getting AI policy wrong, it’s not coming from this framework. It’s coming from the states.

There have already been more than 1,500 AI-related bills filed across state legislatures this year. That’s not thoughtful policymaking. That’s a stampede driven by headlines and worst-case scenarios.
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California, New York, and Colorado are leading the charge with some of the most aggressive proposals—vague “harm” standards, licensing regimes, audits, and broad oversight structures that sound reasonable in theory but would slow innovation in practice. Even “conservative” Texas has drifted in this direction. HB 149 (TRAIGA) ended up better than where it started, but it still reflects too much fear and too little evidence.

Here’s the problem: AI doesn’t stop at state lines.

Cloud systems, data flows, software deployment, and digital services operate across borders. A 50-state patchwork of rules doesn’t make the technology safer—it makes the system more fragmented, more expensive, and less competitive.
Who wins in that environment?

Not startups. Not small businesses. Not consumers.

The winners are the largest incumbents that can afford compliance costs—and foreign competitors operating under entirely different rules.

That’s not a free market. That’s regulation protecting the powerful.

Fear Has Always Been the Wrong Guide

Let’s be honest about what’s driving a lot of this.

Fear.

Fear that jobs will disappear. Fear that kids will be harmed. Fear that new tools will be misused.

Some of those concerns are real. But they are not new.

Every major innovation has brought disruption. Workers were displaced during industrialization. The internet created new risks alongside new opportunities. Social media has amplified underlying challenges that were already there.

But here’s what history shows clearly: trying to ban or overregulate innovation doesn’t solve those problems—it often makes them worse.

When government tries to shut things down, activity doesn’t disappear. It moves. It becomes harder to track, harder to manage, and often more concentrated in fewer hands.

Think prohibition. Think black markets. Think organized crime. You don’t eliminate risk. You shift it—and often amplify it.
Heavy-handed AI regulation would follow the same pattern:

• Driving innovation elsewhere
• Reducing transparency
• Concentrating power

That’s not protection. That’s unintended consequences.

What Lawmakers Should Do Now

There is a better path—and it’s simpler than many think.

1. Refuse the worst ideas. No digital ID systems tied to AI access. That’s a dangerous step toward centralized control that has nothing to do with innovation or safety.
2. Use the laws we already have. Fraud, exploitation, coercion, and abuse are already illegal. Enforce those laws instead of creating entirely new regulatory regimes.
3. Address the growing patchwork problem. AI is inherently interstate commerce. As James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 42, the Constitution empowers the federal government to prevent state actions that “embarrass the intercourse of the States.”

That’s exactly what a fragmented AI regulatory landscape would do.
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A temporary federal pause or preemption of state AI regulations isn’t about expanding power—it’s about preserving a functioning national market.

The Stakes

China will push forward through central planning. Europe is already slowing itself with overregulation. America still has a different option. We can trust markets, empower people, and lead the next wave of innovation.

Or we can let fear drive policy—and fall behind.

The Trump AI framework is a strong start. But it will only matter if we resist the urge to overcorrect at every level of government.

Closing Thought

We live in what should be a free society.

That means accepting trial and error. It means trusting people to adapt. It means allowing innovation to move forward even when it’s imperfect.

America should not lose the AI revolution because policymakers were too afraid to let it happen.

Let parents parent.

Let entrepreneurs build.

Let workers adapt.

Let markets work.

Let People Prosper

If we get this right, America leads the next economic revolution.
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If we get it wrong, we regulate ourselves into decline.