What's the Plan for AI?

Net Assessment

Chris, Zack, and Melanie sit down to chat about the recently-released White House AI Action Plan. Should American AI policy be in pursuit of unchallenged dominance in the field? What kinds of investments and policy choices should the US government be making in order to accelerate AI innovation and deployment? Can the United States become one-stop-shopping for full-stack AI for our friends, in order to counter Chinese supremacy? Do Trump administration policies of the last six months contribute to us achieving our AI goals?

Chris is unhappy with the firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commission Erika McEntarfer, Zack compliments the CCP on getting the Trump administration to capitulate on its trade agenda, and Melanie calls out Senator Josh Hawley for his proposal to give $600 tariff rebate checks when the Trump tariffs are being advertised as a way to bring down the national debt.

Show Links:

• The White House, "Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan," July 2025.

• Editorial Board, "Trump's AI Action Plan is a Good Start—but Only a Start," Washington Post, July 27, 2025.

• Raffaele Huang and Liza Lin, "How China is Girding for an AI Battle With the US," Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2025.

• Mehdi Alhassani and Anthony Bak, "America is Winning the Wrong AI Race," Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2025.

• Aaron MacLean, "A Warning to the Young: Just Say No to AI," Engelsberg Ideas, July 9, 2025.

• Jeffrey Ding, "The Innovation Fallacy: In the US-Chinese Tech Race, Diffusion Matters More than Invention," Foreign Affairs, August 19, 2024.

• "Hawley Introduces Legislation to Send Rebate Checks to Working Americans," July 28, 2025.

• Nevada Joan Lee and Christopher Preble, "The Quiet Demise of the Rio Treaty," Stimson Center, August 1, 2025.

• Christopher Preble, "80 Years with the Bomb: The Nuclear Age in Four Moments," Stimson Center, July 31, 2025.

• The Editorial Board, "The Bureau of Labor Denial," Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2024.

• Spencer Jakab, "Trump vs. the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Why This Firing Could Burn Your Finances," Wall Street Journal, August 4, 2025.

• Power Problems, https://www.cato.org/search/category/multimedia+power-problems

• Blue Blaze, https://blueblaze.substack.com/.

• Support Stimson, https://www.stimson.org/support/.