OpenAI said it wants the Trump administration to pursue a new “freedom-focused” AI agenda to counter China, emphasizing the need for changes to regulatory policy, export controls and copyright restrictions.
President Trump scrapped former President Biden’s AI executive order soon after taking office, replacing it with a new order calling for an “AI Action Plan.” The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy began soliciting feedback for the new policy last month and market leader OpenAI offered its proposal on Thursday.
“OpenAI’s freedom-focused policy proposals, taken together, can strengthen America’s lead on AI and in so doing, unlock economic growth, lock in American competitiveness, and protect our national security,” the company said in a statement on its website.
The maker of the popular chatbot ChatGPT favors a regulatory agenda that prioritizes the freedom to innovate while adopting an approach that “neutralizes potential [Chinese] benefit from American AI companies having to comply with overly burdensome state laws.”
OpenAI says it wants the federal government to move at the speed and scale of the private sector.
“With the [People’s Republic of China] progressing toward ambitious targets for AI adoption across its public administration, security and military, the U.S. government should modernize its processes to safely deploy frontier AI tools at the pace of the private sector and with the efficiency Americans deserve,” OpenAI’s Christopher Lehane wrote in a submission to the White House.
On export controls, OpenAI said it was eager to see the new administration proactively promote the global adoption of American AI systems.
“A comprehensive export control strategy should do more than restrict the flow of AI technologies to the PRC — it should ensure that America is ’winning diffusion,’ i.e., that as much of the world as possible is aligned to democratic values and building on democratic infrastructure,” Mr. Lehane wrote to the White House.
In particular, Mr. Lehane said, OpenAI is eager to see America work to help those countries seeking to build AI in line with principles established by the U.S. government rather than focusing on the “Total Addressable Market,” or the entire world with the exception of China and some of its allies.
OpenAI urged a balanced approach to copyright restrictions, with attention toward ensuring Americans have the freedom to learn.
“America has so many AI startups, attracts so much investment, and has made so many research breakthroughs largely because the fair-use doctrine promotes AI development,” Mr. Lehane wrote. “In other markets, rigid copyright rules are repressing innovation and investment.”
In contrast to the U.K. and European Union’s considerations of new copyright restrictions, OpenAI wants a more open copyright policy that is justified by fear of an ascendant and competitive China.
Mr. Lehane said there should be little doubt that China’s AI developers will get access to data, copyrighted or not, to improve their models.
“Applying the fair-use doctrine to AI is not only a matter of American competitiveness — it’s a matter of national security,” Mr. Lehane wrote. “The rapid advances seen with the PRC’s DeepSeek, among other recent developments, show that America’s lead on frontier AI is far from guaranteed.”
The new administration is likely to be receptive of OpenAI’s input. Mr. Trump hosted the San Francisco-based company’s CEO Sam Altman at the White House one day after taking office to announce the formation of the Stargate project, with the intention of forming a new company to invest $500 billion to build AI infrastructure in America.
The AI Action Plan envisioned in Mr. Trump’s executive order has the goal of creating policy that will sustain and enhance America’s “AI dominance,” according to the White House.
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Principal Deputy Director Lynne Parker said last month the forthcoming plan represents the first step in securing AI dominance.
China, meanwhile, is looking to push its own AI agenda worldwide.
Ahead of an AI summit in Paris last month, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lin Jian said China was recruiting nations to join in creating its own plan to “shape an AI global governance framework based on broad consensus and promote AI for good and for all.”
