Tehran – BORNA – Trump’s “America First in Technology” coverage marks a basic shift from earlier approaches. The administration’s focus is now on dominating strategic applied sciences corresponding to synthetic intelligence (AI), quantum computing, superior biotechnology, and semiconductors. Decision-making constructions have additionally modified, with the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology enjoying a extra direct function in shaping actions. Measures vary from export controls and know-how sanctions to strict oversight of international investments—key parts of Washington’s new know-how coverage structure.
Eroding the Pillars of Multilateral Digital Governance
In the earlier period, the U.S. sought to construct networks of technological cooperation with allies based mostly on shared values. Today, nevertheless, the White House downplays many of those frameworks, opting as an alternative for direct confrontations with different nations’ legal guidelines and laws.
The European Union, as soon as a strategic accomplice in shaping digital laws, has now turn out to be a main goal of Washington’s criticism and stress. Open opposition to the EU’s Digital Markets Act and objections to antitrust fines towards U.S. tech corporations have created an unprecedented belief hole throughout the Atlantic.
U.S. unilateralism has pushed European nations to pursue technological independence extra assertively. Initiatives for localizing cloud infrastructure, constructing semiconductor provide chains, and drafting impartial AI laws are central to this technique. The time period “technological sovereignty” has turn out to be a rallying cry in Brussels and different European capitals.
Intensifying Confrontation with Beijing
Trump views China as each a technological and geopolitical menace. Measures corresponding to proscribing exports of superior chips and isolating Chinese corporations like Huawei and ByteDance type a part of a broader “technological containment” technique. These steps are meant not solely to sluggish China’s progress in superior AI but additionally to sign to U.S. corporations that nationwide safety takes priority over financial features.
Countries like Japan, South Korea, and India—whereas sustaining strategic ties with the U.S.—are additionally designing impartial tech insurance policies. Japan emphasizes setting its personal AI requirements and laws, South Korea is creating home AI fashions based mostly on nationwide datasets to scale back reliance on international gamers, and even Southeast Asian nations like Indonesia are transferring towards their very own algorithm governance frameworks.
In Latin America and Africa, a wave of information governance and AI ethics frameworks has emerged, prioritizing social justice and algorithmic transparency. These traits recommend {that a} multipolar know-how structure is taking form.
Eroding U.S. Domestic Innovation Capacity
Trump’s home insurance policies have additionally had deep implications for America’s scientific energy. Cuts to the National Science Foundation and key analysis establishments, the halting of college analysis tasks, and the lack of high expertise to international locations with extra steady help methods are amongst the penalties. Meanwhile, world rivals are growing their R&D budgets and strengthening their positions in the innovation chain by open-source fashions and worldwide collaboration.
Retreat from International AI Regulation
The U.S. withdrawal from world AI governance initiatives—corresponding to the 2025 Paris Summit on accountable AI growth—indicators a departure from its conventional function in shaping know-how ethics. This vacuum has allowed different gamers like Canada, France, and Australia to take the lead in world regulatory efforts.
Future competitors in know-how shall be decided much less by {hardware} capabilities or the pace of AI mannequin growth and extra by every nation’s skill to create governance frameworks which are versatile, clear, and inclusive—frameworks that may preserve aggressive benefit whereas rebuilding worldwide belief.
About the creator: Fateme Moradkhani covers know-how, surveillance, and AI ethics for Borna News Agency, with a deal with world cyber energy and digital militarization.
End article