The new executive order is the latest effort by the Trump administration to establish a “minimally burdensome national standard” for regulating the AI industry.
On December 11, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence” (the Order). The Order aims to “sustain and enhance the United States’ global AI dominance” by establishing a “minimally burdensome national policy framework for AI” and reducing the web of diverging state laws and regulations that has emerged over the past few years.
Among other things, the Order (i) calls for federal standards and legislation that would preempt conflicting state AI regulations, (ii) creates a federal litigation task force focused on challenging state AI laws in court, and (iii) conditions access to federal grant funding on states’ willingness to avoid enacting onerous AI laws.
