As I noted in an article last December, “The Trump administration has made it very clear that it wants America to dominate the artificial intelligence sector. The administration fears that a hodgepodge of state laws regulating how AI is developed and used could stymie efforts to achieve AI dominance.”[1] To advance administration aims, the White House recently released “A National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence.” The document includes seven legislative recommendations for Congress to consider.

The National Policy Framework’s Seven Recommendations

The White House document included recommendations covering the following seven areas:

• Protecting Children and Empowering Parents. “AI services and platforms must take measures to protect children, while empowering parents to control their children’s digital environment and upbringing.”

• Safeguarding and Strengthening American Communities. “AI development, including data infrastructure buildout, should strengthen American communities and small businesses through economic growth and energy dominance, while ensuring communities are protected from harmful impacts.”

• Respecting Intellectual Property Rights and Supporting Creators. “American creators, publishers, and innovators should be protected from AI-generated outputs that infringe their protected content, without undermining lawful innovation and free expression.”

• Preventing Censorship and Protecting Free Speech. “The federal government must defend free speech and First Amendment protections, while preventing AI systems from being used to silence or censor lawful political expression or dissent.”

• Enabling Innovation and Ensuring American AI Dominance. “The United States must lead the world in AI by removing barriers to innovation, accelerating deployment of AI applications across sectors, and ensuring broad access to the testing environments needed to build world-class AI systems.”

• Educating Americans and Developing an AI-Ready Workforce. “American workers must benefit from AI-driven growth, not just the outputs of AI development, through youth development and skills training, the creation of new jobs in an AI-powered economy, and expanded opportunities across sectors.”

• Establishing a Federal Policy Framework, Preempting Cumbersome State AI Laws. “The federal government must establish a federal AI policy framework to protect American rights, support innovation, and prevent a fragmented patchwork of state regulations that would hinder our national competitiveness, while respecting federalism and State rights.”

Reactions to the National Policy Framework

Journalists Ashley Gold, Maria Curi, and Mackenzie Weinger note that the White House’s guidance was “highly anticipated”; however, they also note, “It will be incredibly hard for Congress to pass anything like it — even with Republicans in control. Disagreements over AI policy go well beyond Republican vs. Democrat, and they overlap with broader tech policy debates that Congress has never been able to solve.”[2] Journalists Katharine Jackson and Doina Chiacu report, “Republican House leaders, including Speaker Mike Johnson and ⁠leader Steve Scalise said the policy gives Congress a roadmap for legislation ‘that provides innovators with much-needed certainty, while protecting consumers and prioritizing kids’ online safety.’”[3]

Daniel Castro, Director of the Center for Data Innovation, applauded the administration’s guidance. He writes, “The White House has laid out exactly the kind of AI agenda Congress should have been pursuing all along: one that addresses legitimate public concerns without smothering innovation. This framework recognizes that the United States will not lead in AI by regulating from a place of fear, but by removing barriers to deployment, supporting adoption across the economy, and targeting policy to real harms.”[4] He adds, “Rather than defaulting to alarmism about mass technological unemployment, they focus on helping workers adapt through education, training, and workforce support. They also take a measured approach to copyright by recognizing the importance of allowing courts to resolve fair use questions, rather than rushing into rules that would undermine lawful AI training and weaken U.S. competitiveness.”

One area where resistance to the framework is likely to arise is over states’ rights. Gold and her Axios colleagues report, “Dozens of House Democrats — including Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.), who are both active on AI issues — introduced a bill that would repeal Trump's December executive order aimed at overriding state AI laws.” The PYMNTS staff observes, “AI companies and investors have clamored for Congress to enact a single, federal standard that would override the growing patchwork of often conflicting state AI regulations. Currently, around 20 states have passed comprehensive privacy laws covering AI and several others have passed more limited measures. It was reported in February that Utah had become the latest flashpoint between states and the White House over AI regulations. As a bill regulating AI was being considered by the state’s legislature, the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs sent a letter to a state senator saying that the bill is ‘unfixable’ and ‘goes against the Administration’s AI Agenda.’”[5]

Castro lauds efforts to pre-empt states’ rights. He explains, “The framework makes a clear case for federal preemption of burdensome state AI laws. The United States cannot remain competitive if developers, businesses, and users face fifty different legal regimes governing a general-purpose technology. A fragmented approach would slow deployment, raise compliance costs, and make it harder for American firms to scale.” At the same time, an article released from his Center written by Hodan Omaar, a Senior Policy Manager at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, praises Utah’s approach to regulating AI in healthcare. She writes, “In 2024, the state legislature passed the Artificial Intelligence Policy Act, which created the Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy (OAIP) and authorized it to run a regulatory sandbox where companies can apply for temporary relief from certain state rules to test AI systems under government supervision. Rather than restricting AI upfront, the sandbox gives the state a way to evaluate how these tools perform in practice and build regulation around evidence rather than assumptions.”[6]

States’ rights isn’t the only area where observers see problems. Journalist Nat Rubio-Licht reported, that Samir Jain, Vice President of policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, believes the new framework is “full of contradictions.”[7] Jain points out, for example, the document says that the government should not coerce AI companies to ban content based on partisan or ideological agendas, yet the Administration’s ‘woke AI’ Executive Order does exactly that. He told Rubio-Licht, “The White House’s high-level AI framework contains some sound statements of principles, but its usefulness to lawmakers is limited by its internal contradictions and failure to grapple with key tensions between various approaches to important topics.”

While most discussions surrounding the proposed framework will focus on policy and regulations, the administration doesn’t want AI education to be overlooked. Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a free “Make America AI-Ready” initiative that includes a free AI literacy course.[8] The course is text-based and is aimed at helping American workers learn the basics of AI. It can be accessed by texting “READY” to 20202. The Department of Labor staff explains, “The course is uniquely designed to deliver bite-sized learning content and daily challenges to users entirely over text message. Users can complete the course in seven days by engaging for just 10 minutes a day.”

Concluding Thoughts

Attorneys from the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell note, “Overall, the Framework reflects a ‘light touch’ federal regulatory approach that emphasizes innovation, preemption of state AI laws, and reliance on existing legal regimes, including deferring to courts on unsettled questions such as whether training AI models on copyrighted data constitutes fair use. Although legislative adoption remains uncertain, the proposal is likely to shape both near-term congressional activity and longer-term regulatory architecture.”[9] Because the administration’s framework will likely confront numerous challenges the law firm suggests, “In the interim, companies should consider operations in a hybrid regulatory environment while positioning for potential federal standardization.” That sounds like pretty good advice.

Footnotes

[1] Stephen DeAngelis, “Regulating Artificial Intelligence,” Enterra Insights, 23 December 2025.

[2] Ashley Gold, Maria Curi, and Mackenzie Weinger, “Trump AI plan urges Congress to overrule states,” Axios, 20 March 2026.

[3] Katharine Jackson and Doina Chiacu, “Trump releases AI policy for Congress to pre-empt state rules,” Reuters, 20 March 2026.

[4] Daniel Castro, “White House Gives Congress the Right Blueprint for AI Policy,” Center for Data Innovation, 20 March 2026.

[5] Staff, “White House Shops National AI Policy to Override States,” PYMNTS, 20 March 2026.

[6] Hodan Omaar, “Utah Shows How States Should Regulate AI in Healthcare,” Center for Data Innovation, 20 March 2026.

[7] Nat Rubio-Licht, “U.S. unveils AI plan, governance debate begins,” The Deep View, 21 March 2026.

[8] Staff, “US Department of Labor launches ‘Make America AI-Ready’ initiative,” U.S. Department of Labor News Release, 24 March 2026.

[9] Staff, “Trump Administration Releases National Policy Framework on Artificial Intelligence,” Sullivan & Cromwell, 20 March 2026.