This is part of an ongoing series of Covington blogs on the AI policies, executive orders, and other actions of the Trump Administration. The first blog summarized key actions taken in the first weeks of the Trump Administration, including the revocation of President Biden’s 2023 Executive Order 14110 on the “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of AI” and the release of President Trump’s Executive Order 14179 on “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” (“AI EO”). This blog describes actions on AI taken by the Trump Administration in February 2025.
White House Issues Request for Information on AI Action Plan
On February 6, the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (“OSTP”) issued a Request for Information (“RFI”) seeking public input on the content that should be in the White House’s yet-to-be-issued AI Action Plan. The RFI marks the Trump Administration’s first significant step in implementing the very broad goals in the January 2025 AI EO, which requires Assistant to the President for Science & Technology Michael Kratsios, White House AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks, and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz to develop an “action plan” to achieve the AI EO’s policy of “sustain[ing] and enhance[ing] America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.” The RFI states that the AI Action Plan will “define the priority policy actions needed to sustain and enhance America’s AI dominance, and to ensure that unnecessarily burdensome requirements do not hamper private sector AI innovation.”
Specifically, the RFI seeks public comment on the “highest priority policy actions” that should be included in the AI Action Plan and encourages respondents to recommend “concrete” actions needed to address AI policy issues. While noting that responses may “address any relevant AI policy topic,” the RFI provides 20 topics for potential input. These topics are general and do not include specific questions or areas where particular input is needed. The topics include: hardware and chips, data centers, energy consumption and efficiency, model and open-source development, data privacy and security, technical and safety standards, national security and defense, intellectual property, procurement, and export controls. As of March 13, over 325 comments on the AI Action Plan have been submitted. The public comment period ends on March 15, 2025. Under the EO, the finalized AI Action Plan must be submitted to the President by mid-October of 2025.
Vice President JD Vance Outlines U.S. AI Policy Priorities at Paris AI Action Summit
On February 11, Vice President JD Vance gave a sweeping policy speech to government, industry, and civil society leaders at the 2025 AI Action Summit in Paris. In his remarks, the Vice President highlighted the “countless, revolutionary applications” of AI to “make us more productive, more prosperous, and more free” and outlined four key AI policy priorities for the Trump Administration: (1) ensuring that “American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide”; (2) encouraging “pro-growth AI policies” instead of “excessive regulation of the AI sector”; (3) ensuring that AI “remain[s] free from ideological bias” and is not “co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship”; and (4) maintaining a “pro-worker growth plan for AI so it can be a potent tool for job creation in the United States.” Vice President Vance also stated that the forthcoming White House AI Action Plan would “avoid[] an overly precautionary regulatory regime while ensuring that all Americans benefit from the technology and its transformative potential.”
Notably, Vice President Vance emphasized the Trump Administration’s disagreement with EU technology regulations, warning that the “AI future is not going to be won by handwringing about safety” and calling for “international regulatory regimes that foster[] the creation of AI technology, rather than strangle[] it.” Following the Vice President’s speech, the U.S. and UK refused to sign on to the AI Action Summit’s joint declaration on “Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet.”
NIST Seeks Public Comment on Cyber AI Profile
On February 14, the National Institute of Standards & Technology (“NIST”) announced the creation of a new “Community Profile” to provide risk management guidance related to “Cybersecurity of AI Systems, AI-enabled Cyber Attacks, and AI-enabled Cyber Defense” (the “Cyber AI Profile”). NIST also published a concept paper on the Cyber AI Profile, which states that organizations “need risk management approaches that support the realities of advancements in AI use to position them for defending against AI-enabled cyber offense by adversaries and taking advantage of AI-enabled cyber defense capabilities,” and notes that the Cyber AI Profile could build upon the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0, published in February 2024, or the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, published in January 2023. The concept paper notes that NIST has made a number of cybersecurity related observations around AI, including that there is no framework for how companies should use AI to safeguard systems and that AI does not fundamentally change how organizations should address cybersecurity. The concept paper also lists twelve questions for public comment, including whether “AI design and implementation failures” should be included in the Cyber AI Profile and whether the Cyber AI Profile should address “the relationship between cybersecurity and privacy of AI.” Public comments on the Cyber AI Profile are due by March 14, 2025. NIST plans to hold a Cyber and AI Workshop to discuss the concept paper on April 3, 2025.
President Trump Issues Memorandum on America First Investment Policy
On February 21, President Trump issued a National Security Presidential Memorandum (“NSPM”) on the America First Investment Policy. The NSPM establishes the U.S. policy of “preserv[ing] an open investment environment to help ensure that artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies of the future are built, created, and grown right here in the United States,” while also announcing foreign investment restrictions in response to “predatory investment and technology-acquisition practices of the PRC and other foreign adversaries or threat actors.” Among other things, the NSPM provides for a “fast-track” process for U.S. investments from U.S. allies and partners in advanced technologies, expedited environmental reviews for investments over $1 billion, new rules to halt U.S. investments in Chinese AI and other technologies and Chinese investments in “critical American businesses and assets,” and efforts to expand CFIUS authority to “restrict foreign adversary access” to U.S. “talent and operations in sensitive technologies (especially artificial intelligence).” The NSPM directs the Treasury Department and CFIUS to take actions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Defense Production Act, and other statutes to implement the NSPM.
Congress and States Respond to DeepSeek and U.S.-China AI Race
U.S. state and federal lawmakers have continued to respond to the heightened U.S.-China competition in AI, following the release of DeepSeek’s R1 AI model in January. In Congress, members of both parties called for bans on the use of DeepSeek’s AI models on U.S. government devices. On February 7, Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ-5) and Darin LaHood (R-IL-16) introduced the No DeepSeek on Government Devices Act (H.R. 1121), which would direct the White House Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) to require federal agencies to prohibit the use of DeepSeek’s AI application, or any successor application or service, on agency information technology. Similarly, on February 20, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) sent a letter to OMB Director Russell Vought calling on the OMB to “immediately prohibit U.S. government departments and agencies from using and accessing DeepSeek” or other AI tools developed in China, citing national security concerns related to DeepSeek’s data security practices. At the state level, officials in New York, Virginia, Iowa, and Pennsylvania issued new bans on the installation or use of DeepSeek’s AI models on state government devices and networks or by government contractors. Relatedly, U.S. lawmakers also issued bipartisan calls for new trade controls to limit Chinese AI development on national security grounds. On February 3, Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MI) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick urging the Commerce Department to “strengthen our export controls on the PRC” in response to DeepSeek’s R1 and V3 AI models, including by strengthening the Biden Administration’s AI Diffusion Rule and restricting the export of H20 or equivalent semiconductor chips and other critical AI components. On February 7, Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-7) introduced the China Technology Transfer Control Act (H.R. 1122), which would direct the President to control the export to China of any “covered national interest technology or IP,” including AI technology, and to prohibit foreign transactions to sell or purchase AI technology to or from China.