As China's open-weight AI models become increasingly powerful, the Trump administration is relying on a small group of officials to decide whether and what restrictions should be imposed, according to a WIRED report. The group is scattered across several departments and agencies in Washington — and they all have differing views on the best way to keep the US ahead in the race against China.
"It's not an argument with two sides, it's an argument with ten sides," one senior White House official tells WIRED about the state of affairs. With little interagency coordination in the administration, policy will almost certainly end up being set by the people with the most influence with the president.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick
Howard Lutnick has increasingly emerged as an influential part of the intra-administration split over AI, in part because he oversees export controls through the Bureau of Industry and Security. According to people familiar, Lutnick has contemplated ways to create incentives for top US labs to create their own open-weight models to counterbalance China, and he has spoken with leaders at a number of AI labs.
On Thursday, Lutnick played down the capabilities of Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 model, writing in an X post that his team found it performed worse than leading US frontier models in key benchmark tests. Lutnick appears to be straddling a middle ground on regulation. He imposed export controls on Anthropic to bring them to heel — but has been more freewheeling than others in the White House.
Arvind Raman, Acting Director of CAISI
Arvind Raman has become Lutnick's top deputy as the acting chief at the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), which sits inside the Commerce Department and serves as the industry's primary point of contact with the government. He assumed the job last week after his predecessor, Chris Fall, abruptly resigned after spending weeks trying to get Anthropic to add stronger safeguards to prevent jailbreaks of its most powerful Fable 5 model. CAISI staff were in meetings with Anthropic's technical teams for weeks as both sides hammered out new safeguards that were deemed strong enough for Fable 5 to be brought back online, WIRED previously reported.
National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross
Sean Cairncross has taken a more hardline approach towards Chinese AI labs. Cairncross has an outsized role in potential attempts to regulate Chinese AI, and he is empowered at the White House to develop a policy to counter the potential national security risks of AI. He helped put together President Donald Trump's June 2 executive order that laid out a framework to assess the most powerful AI models. A former political campaign lawyer who most recently was at the Republican National Committee, Cairncross lacks any tech or AI experience. But current and former staff credit him with trying to grapple with the hard national security problems posed by AI, and allowing his staff to work without micromanaging every problem in a manner a tech software engineer might. In particular, Cairncross and his chief of staff, Lara Smith, have been focused on curbing Chinese labs from training their models off the backs of top US models in a practice called distillation.
Former AI Czar David Sacks
Tech investor David Sacks has remained one of the most influential advisers on AI for Trump, maintaining a direct line to the president even after he departed his role as AI czar in March. Sacks has been ardent about keeping a hands-off approach, according to the WIRED report.
Administration Stance on Chinese AI
In response to a request for comment, White House spokesperson Elizabeth Huston says that the administration's deliberations on Chinese AI are centered on trying to bolster US AI. "The United States leads the world in AI innovation, and President Trump will keep it that way. The Trump Administration is doubling down on innovation to widen the gap between America and the rest of the world," says Huston.
| Advisor | Role | Stance on Chinese AI | Key Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Howard Lutnick | Commerce Secretary | Middle ground; open to incentives for US labs | Imposed export controls on Anthropic; played down Kimi K3 model |
| Arvind Raman | Acting Director, CAISI | Works under Lutnick | Oversaw Anthropic safeguard negotiations |
| Sean Cairncross | National Cyber Director | Hardline; focused on distillation | Helped draft June 2 executive order |
| David Sacks | Former AI Czar | Hands-off | Maintains direct line to Trump |
For enterprise technology decision-makers, the composition of this brain trust signals that US AI policy may remain fragmented, with potential impacts on export controls, compliance requirements, and the availability of open-weight models. The differing views among these officials mean that companies dealing with AI — from labs to logistics — should prepare for possible regulatory shifts depending on who gains the most influence with the president.
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