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Forbes
7 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
What Trump's AI Action Plan Means For U.S. Tech Leadership
Washington, DC - January 23: AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks speaks with President Donald J Trump as ... More he signs executive orders in the Oval Office. On July 23, the Trump administration released its 'Winning the Race – America's AI Action Plan.' The administration's new AI action plan comes after months of policy shifts, industry dealmaking and public input. Here is a breakdown of what it contains and how we got to this point. In the plan's preamble, President Trump states: 'Today, a new frontier of scientific discovery lies before us, defined by transformative technologies such as artificial intelligence… Breakthroughs in these fields have the potential to reshape the global balance of power, spark entirely new industries, and revolutionize the way we live and work. As our global competitors race to exploit these technologies, it is a national security imperative for the United States to achieve and maintain unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance.' This sets the stage for a plan that acts as a blueprint for an acceleration strategy prioritizing infrastructure investment and innovation over regulation. The Journey of AI And American Leadership The administration's focus on AI dates from Trump's first term, when he became the first president to issue an executive order on the topic. Since 2019, maintaining and extending American leadership has been the priority. During the first week of his second presidential term, he issued a new directive to remove barriers to American leadership in AI, setting the tone for deregulation and positioning AI at the center of the U.S. geopolitical, trade and economic strategy. The plan announcement followed a flurry of activity during the first 180 days of Trump's second term. It started with the revocation, on inauguration day, of Biden's AI executive order viewed as an inhibitor to innovation with regulatory overtones, emphasis on equity, civil rights, enforcement of consumer protection laws and safeguards against bias, discrimination, infringements on privacy and other harms from AI. The January 23 executive order set the stage for 'innovation, driven by the strength of our free markets, world-class research institutions, and entrepreneurial spirit,' and asked for the creation of an action plan to 'sustain and enhance America's global AI dominance.' The National Science Foundation followed with a request for information to support the development of the plan. This resulted in more than 10,000 responses and exposed a divide between the industry and civil society. The industry supported the push for global leadership and resisted regulation. Civil society yearned for accountability and expressed concerns about job loss, copyright infringement, disinformation and privacy. Two major announcements signaled the private sector's central role in AI infrastructure buildout. In January, OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX launched Stargate, a $500 billion initiative to expand U.S. AI capacity. In July, companies pledged over $90 billion at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit to fund data centers and power infrastructure. Both efforts underscore a market-led push to scale AI while advancing U.S. technological dominance. On the government side, the White House moved to harness federal purchasing power to steer AI development. In April, the Office of Management and Budget directed agencies to appoint chief AI officers, publish AI strategies, and set rules for using powerful systems like generative AI. Their 'AI Use Memo' encouraged agency AI adoption and the removal of risk-averse barriers to innovation. A companion 'AI Procurement Memo' focused on buying American-made AI tools and simplifying procurement. Together, the policies use public-sector demand to influence industry behavior. Export controls on advanced AI chips also shifted sharply this year. In April, the administration imposed a ban on Nvidia's and AMD's processors, citing national security and limiting China's access. But by July, as part of a rare earths trade deal, restrictions were eased to allow sales with export licenses. Supporters said the move balanced security with economic interests; critics warned it could erode America's competitive edge. This policy reversal marked a notable departure from the Biden-era AI Diffusion framework. On the legislative front, Congress rejected a House-passed 10-year moratorium on state AI regulations when the Senate voted 99–1 to strip it from H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Instead, H.R. 1 was enacted, allocating funds for AI in defense, transformational AI models at the Department of Energy, and tech solutions for rural hospitals. With states able to legislate freely, the move increased pressure on the White House and Congress to work on federal legislation or preemption to avoid a patchwork of state laws. The AI Action Plan Unveiled at the 'Winning the AI Race' summit on July 23, the plan crystallizes a vision to ensure U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence. Introduced by President Trump and top officials, the plan rests on three pillars: accelerating innovation, building AI infrastructure, and leading international AI diplomacy and security. The 28-page document identifies over 90 federal policy actions across these three areas. During an interview with CNBC, Greg Barbaccia, U.S. Federal Chief Information Officer, called the plan a 'whole of government strategy.' It emphasizes removing regulatory barriers, expanding domestic chip manufacturing, and enabling large-scale adoption of AI across government and industry. Key policies in the plan include expedited and modernized permitting for data centers and semiconductor fabs, along with national initiatives to expand the skilled workforce, particularly electricians and HVAC technicians, to meet rising infrastructure demands. The plan also emphasizes exporting American AI leadership through full-stack partnerships with allied nations, combining chips, software, models and standards. It directs the Commerce and State Departments to coordinate with industry to deliver secure AI packages abroad. The plan outlines an ambitious international strategy to shape global AI norms and secure supply chains. It calls for engaging with like-minded allies while promoting interoperability and adoption of U.S.-led AI standards. To safeguard national interests, the plan includes policies to restrict outbound investment in adversarial nations, defend against intellectual property theft, and ensure AI infrastructure is free from foreign adversary technology, notably from China. This combination of infrastructure buildout and AI diplomacy aims to position the U.S. as a leader not only through innovation, but through standard setting, global commerce and adoption and diffusion of American technology. The plan calls for updates to federal procurement rules to ensure that frontier models used by the government are free from top-down ideological bias and aligned with principles of free expression. It offers no details on how this will be implemented. The document does not define how objectivity will be measured, which agencies will oversee compliance, or what enforcement mechanisms will apply, leaving execution to future regulatory or agency-specific action. A central pillar of the action plan is a sweeping deregulatory agenda aimed at removing federal and state barriers to AI innovation. The plan directs the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to launch a public Request for Information to identify federal rules that hinder AI adoption. Simultaneously, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), under Executive Order 14192 'Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation,' is tasked with working across all federal agencies to identify, revise or repeal regulations and guidance that unnecessarily constrain AI development or deployment. The plan also calls for integrating deregulatory criteria into funding decisions. Agencies are instructed to assess a state's AI regulatory climate and potentially limit discretionary funding to states with regimes that may impair program effectiveness. This can be seen as a direct reaction to the failed attempt at a moratorium for state-level AI legislation. Additionally, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is directed to examine whether state AI laws interfere with its federal mandates, while the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is instructed to review prior investigations and consent decrees to ensure they do not impose undue burdens on AI innovation. While framed as a strategy to streamline innovation, the plan's approach draws scrutiny about the politicization of regulatory agencies. The recommendation to use agencies like the FCC and FTC to roll back enforcement or pressure states on funding decisions has raised concerns among critics about potential federal overreach. However, aligning agency policy with national economic goals is both lawful and can be characterized as necessary to maintain U.S. competitiveness in a fast-moving global race. Importantly, the plan frames AI as both an economic and national security imperative. Frontier models must reflect American values and free speech, and infrastructure must be free of foreign adversary technology. The approach is explicitly deregulatory and pro-industry, with global ambitions. The action plan's release marks a major milestone in the administration's strategy to align public and private efforts around a unified AI agenda—and signals that Congress will now face pressure to translate these principles into national legislation. What This Means For The Future Of AI The plan marks a significant moment in U.S. tech policy. The document outlines a clear national direction that embraces acceleration, private-sector leadership, and deregulation as drivers of AI growth. It offers a coherent industrial policy that links AI development to economic competitiveness, infrastructure expansion, and national security. It will shape federal priorities, influence international AI diplomacy, and accelerate domestic capacity building in the months ahead. Yet the plan's deregulatory stance also reveals its limits. It largely disregards the concerns raised by civil society during the public consultation process, which emphasized transparency, accountability, and protections against disinformation, bias and surveillance. Instead, the plan places regulatory rollback and centralized control of agency behavior at the core of its strategy, raising questions about whether innovation is being pursued at the expense of democratic safeguards. The real test now shifts to Congress. With no comprehensive federal law in place, lawmakers will face growing pressure to translate this accelerationist vision into legislation that balances innovation with oversight, fosters growth without fragmentation, and builds public trust in the transformative technologies reshaping American life. Whether Congress can keep pace with this vision remains to be seen.
Business Insider
22-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Trump Truth Social: Trump Claims He Prevented Stock Market Crash in Swipe at Wall Street Journal
Is there anything President Donald J Trump cannot do? Today on Truth Social he claimed that the U.S. stock market surge under his leadership – see chart below – had been driven by a number of complex financial, political and social factors. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Make smarter investment decisions with TipRanks' Smart Investor Picks, delivered to your inbox every week. Okay, that's not true. Donald Factor In fact, President Trump said that the pick-up in share prices was down to just the one, crucial factor – President Trump. In a strange mixture of Trumpy Trump and Grumpy Trump this was the latest post picked up by our Trump Dashboard. 'The Wall Street Journal ran a typically untruthful story today by saying that Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, explained to me that firing Jerome 'Too Late' Powell, the Worst Federal Reserve Chairman in History, would be bad for the Market. Nobody had to explain that to me. I know better than anybody what's good for the Market, and what's good for the U.S.A. If it weren't for me, the Market wouldn't be at Record Highs right now, it probably would have CRASHED! So, get your information CORRECT. People don't explain to me, I explain to them!' If only the President had been around back in 1929, ensuring that the word did not fall into the Great Depression and the long, dark slide towards World War Two and all of its horrors. Confidence Returns But let's not be too cynical. Yes, a large reason behind the slump in April was down to fears over the President's tariff policies. His decision to pause or reduce some of the worst tariffs, as well as seal very favorable trade deals for the U.S. with the likes of the U.K. have also installed confidence. Better than expected economic and inflation data and positive corporate commentary have also helped. However, one analyst thinks that the rally – largely driven by U.S. tech may be running out of steam. Whenever a narrow rally losses steam, it usually signals that investors are starting to look for signs of a broader rally,' said Matt Maley, of Miller Tabak & Co. 'When they don't get it, they tend to pull back for a while.'
New Indian Express
19-07-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Monsoon session: Answers MPs must seek in parliament
It's that time of the year. On Monday, India's parliament will meet for the monsoon session. Theory says parliament is where the elected discuss, debate and legislate on issues. In reality, the elected simply represent the party instead of electors—in the 17th Lok Sabha, 11 of 15 sessions were adjourned early. We will know in the coming weeks whether the issues that matter are raised, or the session turns into an amphitheatre for partisan political rhetoric. Hopefully, the MPs will not only raise the questions, but also question the answers! Here are a few issues that deserve attention and answers. Operation Sindoor: The issue of national security and terrorism is expected to hold centre stage. The monsoon session is the first since the terror attack in Pahalgam in April. The government is expected to provide answers on intelligence failure, security lapse, if the terrorists were apprehended and, of course, the four day face-off. There is much attention on the ceasefire and whether it was imposed, as claimed repeatedly, by US President Donald J Trump, despite denials by India. The timing of the ceasefire is important but beyond when, how and who brokered it, there is the question of why the US pivoted to intervene. Was it the BrahMos hit on Nur Khan airbase? Is the Pakistani nuclear site and systems at Nur Khan airbase under US control, as claimed by Pakistan experts and, if so, what does this mean for India's security? Air India 171 crash: The crash of the Air India flight from Ahmedabad to London that claimed 260 lives is the worst in recent aviation history. The how and why of the crash is critical both for Air India and beleaguered Boeing. The Air Accident Investigation Bureau of India, which investigated the cause, released a preliminary report that seemed to park the blame on the pilots by excerpting a cockpit conversation. Why not release the whole conversation, as was done in the case of Captain 'Sully' Sullenberger's US Airways flight 1549 report? Is it normal to release a preliminary report with an inference about fault—particularly when tradition requires explicit avoidance of blame—and then issue clarifications? Was the report leaked to US media, and by who? What explains the Directorate General of Civil Aviation's directive to airlines to check fuel switches? Over 350 million Indians fly every year and they deserve clarity and accountability.
Malay Mail
17-07-2025
- Business
- Malay Mail
Gold bullion and the erosion of US trust: Europe's historical and quiet revolt — Phar Kim Beng
JULY 11 — Amid trade wars, shifting alliances, and a resurgence of unilateralism, a quiet financial rebellion is unfolding in Europe. It is not led by protestors in the streets or fiery parliamentary speeches. Instead, it is taking shape deep in the vaults of global finance — through gold. In recent months, both Italy and Germany have revived efforts to repatriate significant portions of their gold reserves from the United States. Although this movement has received little attention in mainstream Western media, its implications are profound. These actions reflect growing mistrust — not only of the US financial system — but of Washington's willingness to weaponise it, especially under the administration of President Donald J Trump. A history of gold and mistrust This is not the first time Europe has questioned US custodianship of its monetary sovereignty. In 2013, under President Barack Obama, Germany's Bundesbank repatriated more than 300 tonnes of gold — worth approximately US$18.6 billion (RM79 billion) at today's prices — from New York and Paris. That move, although couched in technical justifications, was a symbolic assertion of financial independence. Yet today's repatriation push is markedly different. It is unfolding under vastly altered geopolitical circumstances, where Trump's second term is marked by aggressive rhetoric, erratic policy swings, and punitive economic measures — including tariffs that have disproportionately targeted the European Union. Furthermore, Trump's repeated attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell have cast doubt on the independence of America's central bank, raising red flags for European policymakers. As noted by the TAE (The Automatic Earth), this behaviour undermines confidence in US financial stewardship and prompts urgent reassessments of where Europe's wealth should be stored. The significance of sovereign gold Gold, in this context, is no longer just a commodity or hedge. It has become a tangible symbol of sovereignty. That Germany and Italy are actively pursuing the return of their gold reserves — currently valued at a combined US$245 billion, according to the Financial Times — signals a shift in the geopolitical trust that once undergirded the postwar transatlantic alliance. Indeed, gold was once central to the Bretton Woods system. Until 1971, the US dollar was convertible to gold by the Federal Reserve, anchoring international monetary stability. During the Cold War, many European nations stored their bullion in the US as a precaution against a potential Soviet invasion. But historical memory has its own gravitational pull. Indeed, gold was once central to the Bretton Woods system. Until 1971, the US dollar was convertible to gold by the Federal Reserve, anchoring international monetary stability. — Picture by Choo Choy May In the mid-1960s, President Charles de Gaulle of France ordered the transfer of nearly all French overseas gold reserves back to Paris, having lost confidence in the Bretton Woods system. This early repatriation foreshadowed today's deeper anxieties — only now, the mistrust is rooted less in East–West confrontation than in Western disunity itself. Germany's repatriation drive Germany provides a clear illustration of how grassroots pressure and institutional decisions have combined to alter gold policy. Beginning in 2010, a popular movement known as 'Bring Our Gold Home' gained traction across German civil society. As a result, the Bundesbank announced in 2013 that it would store 50 per cent of its gold reserves within Germany, relocating 674 tonnes — worth roughly US$41.8 billion today — from New York and Paris to Frankfurt. That operation, which cost about US$9.5 million, marked a turning point in how Europe viewed US financial custodianship. Currently, 37 per cent of the Bundesbank's gold reserves remain in New York — a number now under renewed scrutiny amid the shifting winds of global diplomacy. Italy's growing scepticism Italy, too, has begun intensifying calls to retrieve its gold from American vaults. While its holdings are smaller than Germany's in absolute terms, the political messaging is just as sharp. In Rome, populist and nationalist voices have increasingly questioned why Italian wealth should remain under the indirect control of a foreign central bank — especially one seen as operating under an increasingly politicised US executive. These concerns are compounded by Trump's aggressive tariff policy, which has treated European allies as if they were adversaries. NATO, once the bedrock of Euro–American defence cooperation, has been repeatedly devalued rhetorically by the US President. The European Union is being treated less as a strategic partner and more as a transactional entity, to be bent to Washington's will. A slow unravelling of trust What is emerging is not a dramatic rupture, but a gradual erosion of confidence. Should France or the Netherlands decide to follow Germany and Italy in removing their gold from US storage, it could mark the beginning of the end of American custodianship over Europe's monetary assets. Such a shift would carry symbolic and systemic consequences. It would signal that Europe no longer trusts the United States to safeguard the financial pillars of the postwar liberal order. More critically, it would suggest that Europe is preparing for a future where US power is neither as benign nor as stable as it once seemed. Gold repatriation, therefore, is not merely about logistics or portfolio diversification. It is about hedging against a future in which financial systems are no longer neutral, but weaponised — used to coerce compliance, punish dissent, and enforce geopolitical hierarchy. Conclusion: A quiet but strategic revolt The renewed gold repatriation efforts by Germany and Italy reflect a quiet but growing revolt against the unpredictability of Trump-era diplomacy and the perceived decline in US institutional reliability. Should this trend continue, the very architecture of transatlantic financial trust — built painstakingly since 1945 — could slowly crumble. The message from Europe is clear: in a world where alliances are questioned and financial tools are increasingly wielded as weapons, sovereignty must be made tangible again — and there is no more enduring symbol of that than gold. * Phar Kim Beng is a professor of Asean Studies and director of the Institute of Internationalization and Asean Studies at the International Islamic University of Malaysia ** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
IOL News
11-07-2025
- Automotive
- IOL News
How Musk and Trump's face-off may affect US democracy
THERE is a raging war of words between Elon Musk and US President Donald J Trump. Image: AFP THERE is a raging war of words between Elon Musk and the Empire, or President Donald J Trump, to be exact. Musk, the X proprietor, is the perfect backdrop against which a drama of such enormous proportions can play out. A rivalry billed as a tussle between the richest man in the world against the most powerful president in the world, their public spat over social media may be the terminal episode of the empire games. Whatever the deeper underlying causes of this tragicomedy are, they have profound unintended consequences. For one, and most importantly, how far can money be permitted to influence or taint with impropriety the sanctity of elections and their outcomes? Put differently, in the determination whether or not the outcomes of a general election met the golden standard of free and fair, at what point should the effect of extraneous factors be considered or ignored? In any other regulated setting including a competitive process in an application for employment, tendering for a public service or a hearing in a judicial process, among others, is forbidden for a bidding candidate or indeed a subject of adjudication to offer money, sexual favours or for that matter, any other morally repugnant incentive of value to distort the outcomes of the bid or enquiry. Such conduct will be adjudged to have violated the propriety of the process, therefore rendering the outcome wholly unfair and illegal. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. 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Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ Musk did not invent the system that produced Trump or DJT, his favourite endearment for the President. Indeed, he has now formed a political party of his own called America Party, a creation that has triggered violent quakes in the American political establishment. He plans to end the stranglehold of duopoly in US politics and, to the extent possible, re-imagine the kingmaker dynamic inside Congress and the Senate. The Donald has been truly mortified by its announcement. He took to Truth Social to fire a volley of accusations and subliminal threats. His anxiety is understandable. It is more about the unbending resolve of its founder as well as the new party's disruption potential on the MAGA universe. All that Trump felt constrained from voicing is that until Musk explains how he intends to be free from the Israeli lobby, his party will soon be captured like the Democrats and the Republicans. The spectre of money raises a number of philosophical questions which neither Trump nor the entire 'collective west' can satisfactorily answer. This is because the concept of democracy as a facet of the supreme will of the people has no equal. No matter the country, it can be called by any other name. Its sanctity, however, lies in the fact that it periodically expresses the will of the people sought to be governed by it. Yet, the contraption loudly touted as democracy is a perverted set of mangled processes designed to express the will of those who can buy their way into it and own it. On the one hand, there is Musk, the billionaire class and the wealthy superpacs who insist that their voting dollars should return a favourable political purchase. They are pitted against the rest of the voting masses, on the other hand, who erroneously believe that their vote alone is the ultimate determiner of the affairs of the sovereign. Perverted to this deplorable extent, the 2024 US Presidential elections delivered the setting that presaged the battle of the two titans. Musk dutifully bought the elections for Trump. And in the case of South Africa, Rob Hersov boasts of having bought Ramaphosa the ANC presidency with bags and bags of money so as to sway the ANC Mpumalanga provincial delegates against Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma. That both men had similar expectations from their purchases is not in doubt. Yet, whether or not their respective objectives were similarly realised is unclear. In the case of Musk, it is a subject of public knowledge that Trump disappointed his benefactor. For Rob Hersov, however, the results are moot, making his appearances on local podcasts and media broadcasts always indignant and accusatory. It would seem, therefore, that democracy is the direct opposite of meritocracy. Small wonder, then, that more often than not, its mechanics tend to catapult the most incompetent candidates to the apogee of power. With practised dexterity, the benefactors of our version of democracy easily find and pay for those who are amenable to purvey the most insensitive political instincts on behalf of their unseen overlords. Could we then be persuaded to conclude that in a Trump versus Musk duel, there will be an outright winner and an outright loser? Hard to tell. In this battle without rules, no matter who wins, democracy, or that capitalist market for people's votes, is bound to lose. There are two possible outcomes in this depressing spectacle. Either Trump will win spectacularly or, as the bookies tend to predict, may win somewhat less spectacularly. Whichever would be the case, may the less deplorable version of winner triumph. But the golden rule of the casino is indisputable. The House always wins. Musk may be bringing a Twitter knife to a nuclear gun fight. But he already knows that. The America Party is an agency meant to lend legitimacy to his fight and, the CIA/FBI deep state permitting, equalise the rules of engagement. To be fair, Trump has been fighting a very different war, making the spats on social media with Musk an irritating distraction. Ever since he descended from the escalators in the Trump Tower to declare his presidential ambitions, Donald J Trump has had a very different interpretation of what the power of the US empire is or should be. Or, as it had become his go-to refrain, how over time such power has been used or misused, as the case may be, by different incumbents in that most consequential office in the unipolar order. He had planned to place the imprimatur of state in the hands of the President and dictate to the world from the intimidating heights of the Oval Office. His disdain for constant referrals to Congress and the Senate is amply demonstrated by a profusion of orders regulating mundane issues of state and the not-so-mundane others. This complex manoeuvre of fusing the power of the President with the might of the empire became apparent in the second stint of Donald as the 47th President. It was quick, rapturous and overarching. For a politician whose cunning is concealed by his insouciant theatrics, and his emotional and intelligence quotient referred to in derisive terms, he mastered a sweeping stroke that will forever haunt the politics of the United States of America. In one fell swoop, he turned a President into an Emperor. As for Musk, according to the restriction found in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution preventing him from becoming a President of the United States, of America, his field of strategy becomes narrowed notwithstanding its grand ambitions. Between kingmaker and filibuster, it may also provide the ultimate cover for its founder against political persecution. For the tech billionaire, however, he has to deal with the biggest elephant in the room. But his ability to do so is limited by idiosyncratic factors. For one, the cardinal sin of throwing money at elections is a Musk problem. And this war is unfolding on X, Musk's media mouthpiece. This probably means that Musk is himself the biggest elephant in his own room. * Ambassador Bheki Gila is a Barrister-at-Law. ** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, Independent Media, or IOL. Get the real story on the go: Follow the Sunday Independent on WhatsApp.
