What Vance Left Unsaid in Paris: America’s AI Leadership Hinges on Big Tech Leadership
Vice President Vance was right when he took the stage at a recent summit meeting in Paris and warned world leaders not to stifle AI innovation with regulation: Europe’s impulse to impose precautionary regulations on digital technologies and platforms does indeed inhibit innovation. But in declaring the Trump administration’s determination to “ensure that American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide,” Vance missed an opportunity to call out specific laws and regulations, such as the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which undermine U.S. technology leadership by explicitly reining in America’s leading tech companies.
If the Trump administration truly aims to secure U.S. technology leadership generally—including AI leadership—then it must recognize the connection between global scale, market share, and the ability to plow huge investments into R&D to produce innovations. America is in the AI vanguard because its leading tech companies have succeeded on the requisite scale to make those investments. They are planning to invest more than $300 billion in AI this year alone. But Europe’s digital markets framework aims to curb their growth by tagging them as “gatekeepers,” restricting their ability to innovate, and subjecting them to huge fines. The administration should take a strong stance against countries with such policies. Limiting disproportionate or undue attacks on leading U.S. tech companies is critical to maintaining technology leadership writ large.
While U.S. tech companies have been facing attacks from European regulators, similar strategies have been adopted by the U.S. government. Former FTC chair Lina Khan has taken aggressive actions against every major tech company, advocating for their breakup and collaborating with the EU to block mergers crucial for U.S. tech competitiveness. The FTC even went as far as working with the Chinese tech firm Temu to build an antitrust case against Amazon—an American tech company projected to spend over $100 billion on capital expenditure in 2025, with the majority going to AI. The Trump administration should put a stop to these discriminatory and predatory attacks on big tech at home just as it should take a strong stand against them abroad.
The implication of the vice president’s overall message in Paris rings true: Protecting U.S. tech leadership means recognizing that America’s competitive edge stems largely from innovation in the private sector. And the corollary is that maintaining this competitive edge requires robust, well-capitalized technology companies capable of making sustained investments in future innovations. This principle—and the fact that China is gaining on the United States in corporate R&D—should guide the U.S. response to regulatory pressures on the entire tech industry without ignoring a chunk of companies making the most significant investments in AI and other critical technologies.
The Trump administration has a clear opportunity to reverse course. Instead of replicating harmful European-style regulations or continuing the aggressive antitrust posture of the past few years, policymakers should adopt the vice president’s broader vision of an America that stands behind its innovators. That means crafting sensible rules to ensure fair competition without impeding the ability of large companies to do what they do best: partner with start-ups hungry for capital, invest in high-risk research, and bring cutting-edge technologies to market.
As the vice president put it, attacking U.S. tech is a “terrible mistake” that will hurt not only the U.S. tech industry but also limit the innovative capacities of other nations reliant on the breakthroughs that originate in the United States. Embracing this principle at home is essential. It is time for the U.S. government to recognize that big tech companies are indispensable allies in advancing American innovation and Western global leadership in the technologies of tomorrow.
