US President Donald Trump defended his administration’s approach to artificial intelligence regulation in a FOX News interview published Friday, stating that Washington has established necessary guardrails while asserting that Beijing’s primary check on the technology is its leader. He pointed to the recent blacklisting of AI company Anthropic as evidence of swift enforcement action against firms that violate security protocols.

Trump described the decision to bar Anthropic from government contracts in explicit terms, telling the network that the firm had crossed red lines three months prior. “They did something that was very bad. Three months ago. And we shut them down. We shut them down fast,” he said, emphasizing the rapidity of the administrative response to perceived threats.

Legal Challenge and Oversight

The Trump administration branded Anthropic a security risk earlier this year and barred it from working with the US government, though late last month a federal judge ruled that the move was illegal. Trump also defended his team’s expertise by stating, “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.”

US-China Technological Competition

Trump contrasted American regulatory frameworks with China’s approach, noting, “China doesn’t have guardrails, by the way … President Xi is the guardrail. I mean, you can do anything in China.” He insisted that the US remains ahead in the technological competition, declaring, “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.