Is AI the exception to ‘America First'?

Politico

7 days ago

With help from Aaron Mak
The AI Action Plan that President Donald Trump rolled out last week contained quite an easter egg for globalists.
In many ways, the 28-page document was very much in line with Trump's swaggering, chest-puffing attitude toward foreign policy. It took an 'America first' approach that rhetorically paralleled the administration's punishing tariff threats, withdrawal from 'woke' UNESCO and drive-by references to 'the evil of globalism.'
But packed into the AI plan's pages — page 20, to be exact — was a pivot: a call to forge 'an enduring global alliance' on the technology.
The plan gets pretty specific. It calls for the State and Commerce departments to leverage the U.S. position in international bodies — it names the United Nations, the OECD, G7, G20 and the International Telecommunication Union, among others — to advocate standards and governance approaches that 'reflect American values.' (If you're not familiar, the ITU is a 150-year-old UN agency that sets rules for global telecom and tech infrastructure — and has been the subject of a global power struggle before.)
So wait — did AI just carve out its own exception to 'America First'? And what does that mean for America's increasingly fragile relationships with Western allies?
European diplomats I called from Germany, France and Brussels declined to comment.
Karsten Wildberger, Germany's digital minister, attended the AI Action Plan announcement in Washington and nodded to the sense of alliance in a CNN interview: 'Well, look, Germany and Europe, we are great partners of the U.S. — 75 percent of our cloud services is serviced by great American tech companies, and we value this partnership.'
Ronan Murphy, director of the tech policy program at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, told DFD that although he saw the theme of the plan as 'very much America First, AI dominance,' he agreed there was a vibe shift when it comes to how to actually push that agenda.
'The outright acknowledgement that there is a benefit to working with others in this technology is a little bit new, for this administration,' Murphy said.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy did not immediately respond to questions from DFD.
One group that has long advocated for the U.S. to take a more robust role in AI on the world stage is the Special Competitive Studies Project, founded in 2021 by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
The group submitted its recommendations to the White House ahead of the release of the plan. Joe Wang, vice president of global affairs, said he saw SCSP's ideas reflected in the action plan's third pillar, which reads: 'To succeed in the global AI competition, America must do more than promote AI within its own borders. The United States must also drive adoption of American AI systems, computing hardware, and standards throughout the world.'
While there are some calls in the action plan for tracking risks, Wang said the export of the tech stack for AI was paramount: 'If we are not the ones doing that, China will be.'
As if on cue, China said Saturday that it planned to launch a new world AI organization, with a focus on the Global South.
'We should strengthen coordination to form a global AI governance framework that has broad consensus as soon as possible,' Premier Li Qiang told the annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, according to Channel News Asia.
In light of the race with China, any restrictions on American technology could be seen as slowing down Team USA, or the 'enduring global alliance' the AI plan would seek to build.
Some of those restrictions still come from American allies — and are still causing arguments. Last week, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick pledged to use tariff negotiations to whack at digital services taxes that U.S. tech firms complain unfairly target them. 'Donald Trump's got these tech companies back and we're working on it,' Lutnick said. 'You saw, we got rid of it in Canada, we got rid of it in all sorts of countries, they knock it down, that's one of our key objectives.'
And House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is on a junket to Brussels and London this week blasting European tech regulations. His work builds on the comments Vice President JD Vance made to the Paris AI Action Summit in February: 'The AI future is not going to be won by hand-wringing about safety. It will be won by building -- from reliable power plants to the manufacturing facilities that can produce the chips of the future.'
Bluster aside, the U.S. just reached a trade deal with the EU that skipped over digital taxes or regulation.
Ironically, the drive to beat China may be a moderating force for the America First AI policy machine.
Wang, at SCSP, said as Washington and Beijing hustle to build out AI infrastructure across the world, the U.S. offers an advantage. China's earlier 'Belt and Road' initiative left countries saddled with 'predatory' giant projects and expensive maintenance, he said. One recent analysis found China is the largest debt collector in the developing world. China's new AI plan is 'the next generation of how China can leverage a new tech ecosystem to make sure partners remain tied to China in a way that is advantageous to China, not the partner countries,' Wang said.
By contrast, he said, 'The partnership we operate is a more cooperative system.'
Tesla's robotaxis red light
Tesla hit a permitting snag with its plans to debut robotaxis in San Francisco over the weekend, reports POLITICO's California Decoded team.
Tesla initially informed staff last week it would launch the robotaxis in the city as soon as that Friday, Business Insider reported. But local officials told the Decoded team that Tesla never applied for the permits to do so — even with safety drivers behind the wheel. The California Public Utilities Commission told Decoded that Tesla notified the agency it would offer the service to families and friends of employees, and certain members of the public.
'If Tesla actually deploys its AVs in San Francisco without permits, these vehicles should be seized and impounded,' Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener told POLITICO. 'We have permitting & safety rules for a reason. Elon Musk isn't exempt from those rules.'
The warnings may have worked. Members of the Decoded team report that they didn't see any Tesla robotaxis on San Francisco's streets this weekend.
Tesla did not respond to an inquiry from DFD.
X to comply with Irish social media law
X implemented age verification and parental control measures over the weekend to abide by the terms of Ireland's Online Safety Code, POLITICO's Eliza Gkritsi reports.
That law, which went into effect on July 21, requires sites hosting adult content to implement practices to protect minors. Ireland's media regulation agency, Coimisiún na Meán, said last Wednesday that X had not taken any actions to comply with the code, and requested that the company provide information about its plans to do so.
Coimisiún na Meán told POLITICO on Monday that X had implemented the measures for minors, but Irish regulators said they are still determining whether those steps are sufficient.
The company is currently challenging the Online Safety Code in Irish courts.
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Stay in touch with the whole team: Aaron Mak ([e-mail]); Mohar Chatterjee ([e-mail]); Steve Heuser ([e-mail]); Nate Robson ([e-mail]); and Daniella Cheslow ([e-mail]).