Trump defends AI guardrails, claims US is winning against China

US President Donald Trump defended his administration’s approach to artificial intelligence regulation in a FOX News interview published on Friday.

He said Washington has guardrails in place while asserting that Beijing’s main check on the technology is its leader.

Asked what guardrails could ensure that the US wins the AI race against China while reassuring Americans wary about data centers, Trump pointed to Anthropic: “They did something that was very bad. Three months ago. And we shut them down. We shut them down fast.”

Earlier this year, the Trump administration branded Anthropic a security risk and barred it from working with the US government.

Late last month, a federal judge ruled that the move was illegal.

Trump also said: “We have guardrails. The biggest guardrails are having people that are just as smart because nobody understands it except you have to be extremely high IQ.”

Turning to Beijing, he said, “China doesn’t have guardrails, by the way … President Xi is the guardrail. I mean, you can do anything in China.”

Trump insisted that the US is ahead in the technological competition, arguing that America is “competing with China. As you know, we are winning. You know we are winning against China with respect to AI.”

He described the stakes in sweeping terms, claiming AI is “bigger than the internet” and “probably” bigger than the Industrial Revolution.

“It could be, and we’ll know in about a year, it could be the biggest thing of all. And it’s mostly for the good.”