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Thanks to President Trump, American AI is open for business. "'Accelerating American AI Exports': Remarks by Director Kratsios at the APEC Digital and AI Ministerial Meeting,"
The U.S. Director of Michael Kratsios, the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has been quite busy of late selling the America First AI Initiative both at home and abroad (my earlier reflections here: Liberal Democratic Leninism in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Tech Driven Social Progress: Remarks by Director Kratsios at the Endless Frontiers Retreat and "The Golden Age of American Innovation"; and CSIS EVENT: Unpacking the White House AI Action Plan with OSTP Director Michael Kratsios; my reflections on the US AI Action plan here: "Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan" (July 2025)--A Reverie on Building and Racing on A.I.'s Structural "Fury Road".
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None of this, of course, can or ought to make the slightest difference to Director Kratsios. He is in the cage; he is not designing it or ought to be particularly interested in its composition, materials, structures, resilience, etc. Indeed, spending too much time on these meta-cognitive issues would prove both distracting and a threat to the objective--to take a vision of cognitive reality already shaped through its collective given and self evident premises, and to impose it on targeted collectives in ways that achieve desired objectives. It is only in this--from the bottom up conceptually, that Director Kratsios stands in any relation to the larger issues. He represents, in this sense an active Umwelt the actions of which contribute to and shape--solely by their iterative and aggregating action--the Lebenswelt in which it necessarily operates--both in its physical and simulated (virtual) aspects.
With this as foundation, it is possible to extract something useful from Director Kratsio's remarks beyond the necessary word salad expected of political figures and officials tasked with "selling" idea--in this case a reality structure for coding of a certain sort and the platforms within which it is meant to operate. This has particular application to Director Kratsios' latest remarks: "'Accelerating American AI Exports': Remarks by Director Kratsios at the APEC Digital and AI Ministerial Meeting," the text of which, as prepared for delivery was posted to the White House Website on 5 August 2025 (and follows in full below) (Bloomberg Interview clip here).
The object of the Remarks was to focus on one particular aspect of the AI Action Plan--a part of the AI Action Plan critically relevant to another Trump Administration Initiative, its America First Project (20 January 2025; "From this day forward, the foreign policy of the United States shall champion core American interests and always put America and American citizens first").
As you no doubt know, on July 23rd, just two weeks ago, the White House published the President’s AI Action Plan. The plan outlines America’s national effort to remain the leader in pioneering AI and to be the global partner of choice as this technology transforms industries and information flows around the world. The United States stands resolved to do all it can to accelerate AI innovation, to build out AI infrastructure, and to conduct AI diplomacy. President Trump began executing the AI Action plan immediately, signing three executive orders following his remarks on the occasion. These included an executive order preventing U.S. government procurement of ideologically biased AI models, an order providing resources for the rapid construction of data centers and power systems, and, finally, an order promoting the export of full-stack American AI technology packages to allies and partners worldwide. That is why I am here today. (Remarks )
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From this opening Director Kratsios then elaborated a number of themes worth unpacking a little.
1. AI will be a powerful tool for bilateral diplomacy. The Remarks elaborate briefly the alignment of AI policy and the America First Initiative in the constitution of a system of deeply integrated win-win relationships in which States may engage in mutual beneficial transactions around a "quality product" which then will both tie States together in a transactional platform and enhance their interest, however these interests may be valued by the parties.
[M]y colleague David Sacks, White House AI Czar, has described the president’s Action Plan remarks as the most significant technology speech since President John F. Kennedy told the nation that America had chosen to go to the Moon. History will prove Mr. Sacks right, I think. We know that here in 2025, we meet in a time much like the one President Kennedy described in 1962, “in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance.” Our challenge is to confront the changes promised by AI with strength on behalf of our fellow citizens, and our hope is that these technologies will be tools for the growth and exercise of knowledge, and not instruments of ignorance and fear. (Remarks ).
In a sense that is an apt analogy--certainly in its socio-political intensity. If technology is power, then technology, like power is both unavoidable, and the consequence of failing to exploit its potential to the fullest--come what may--will realign not just power relations but the cognitive cages through which power systems are arranged in hierarchies that tend to perpetuate dominance.
3. Let's Make a Deal. Director Kratsios, however, did not project his image all the way to the meeting at which his remarks were delivered to make an historical analogy, or to consider the normative metaphysics of power in a tech fueled environment. Rather, in his own words, "I am here to discuss not the technology that may arise tomorrow but the technology ready for application today. I come to you not to talk of the promise of potential future technologies but of economic partnerships and the mutual prosperity we can achieve now." (Remarks ). Metaphysics and historical analogy will sort themselves out well enough through a phenomenology of transaction--a way of approaching the organization of reality that is action oriented and determined to wrest meaning from the accumulation of action rather than wresting action as a function of the application of meaning. One focuses on the individual but one manages the individual within a predetermined deal space constructed out of expectations about the role of individuals, of markets, and of the state, especially where the state represents collective activity to their peers.
With the AI Action Plan, the Trump Administration is getting the Federal government out of the way of America’s AI innovators, to create space for real competition and creativity, so that companies can create the kinds of products every type of consumer will find truly useful. This administration seeks to free the power of private industry to commercialize breakthrough technologies, prevent monopoly, and build the future. It believes that the broad overregulation of AI incentivizes centralization and censorship. (Remarks)
The State avoids regulation of the factors of production of AI; it oversees the process of transactions in AI of whatever it is that is built or offered for sale. Whatever it is, it will be based on US tech, and that, itself, provides a powerful (trans)actional attachment between American producers and (foreign) consumers of tech.
All of this has already been nicely explained by Director Kratsios in earlier remarks (Liberal Democratic Leninism in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Tech Driven Social Progress).
4. The Deal-making Platform and the America First Tech Mass Line. That alignment of technology and individual capacity, protected within the structures of the State, itself exhibits the core expectations of the America First Lebenswelt and its connection to the constellation of the Umwelt from out of which it arises and which it both serves and incarnates as a collective manifestation.
The Trump administration believes that by extending human capacities and complementing human work, AI already heralds a new industrial revolution, information revolution, and even cultural renaissance.* * * The true technological and new industrial revolution we look forward to today is not the frontier AI systems themselves, but what our peoples will do with them. AI applications as we experience them today already appear poised to be an enormous multiplier for improving our productivity * * *Where it takes us next, the Trump administration believes, is for inventors to show us, but we will labor to ensure that it betters the lives of all of our citizens. (Remarks ).
This system provides an efficient cage within which to realize its ambitions. It builds an engine in which tech and ambition can be ignited to produce propulsion that takes the chassis of State in which it is placed in whatever direction it is meant to go--toward enhanced wealth and prosperity or towards some sort of apotheosis of human striving in others.
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We are ready to make deals under the dealmaker in chief. As we speak, the clock is ticking as my office at the White House and the Secretary of State assist the Secretary of Commerce in establishing the American AI Exports Program, which will carry out the development and deployment of the U.S. AI stack, packaged for each customer nation’s convenience. * * *As needed, the United States is eager to employ all available U.S. Federal financial tools to support priority AI export packages. These include direct loans, loan guarantees, equity investments, co-financing, political risk insurance, credit guarantees, technical assistance, and feasibility studies. (Remarks )
Just as Foucault a generation ago could speak to the foundational impact of power/knowledge systems, so, it seems, the Trump Administration may speak to the power of market/State systems. Markets may go where they like, but deals are protected, enhanced, and to some extent directed, by the State through the mechanisms of power. And here the object is to enhance dealmaking (Umwelt power relations in and as markets) to the ends of encoding U.S. tech among (State to State) partners in developing the lebens-platform that will constitute a marketplace where competing tech may find it harder to find a point of entry. It is only in this way that one can make sense of Director Kratsio's understanding that "With the AI Action Plan, the Trump Administration is getting the Federal government out of the way of America’s AI innovators, to create space for real competition and creativity, so that companies can create the kinds of products every type of consumer will find truly useful." That is true, but only within the platform that the U.S. creates and for the purpose (projection of US AI tech) it is instituted and subsidized.
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President Trump’s administration is unapologetically America First. We want what is best for the American people, above all. Fortunately, as AI transforms the future of global commerce it presents an opportunity for mutual benefit. We know you want what’s best for your country, too. With the AI export packages we are developing, we want you to have the AI sovereignty, data privacy, and technical customization that you so rightly demand on behalf of your peoples. We are committed to finding a way to enable America’s private companies to meet your national technological needs. (Remarks )
The system tolerates unequal valuation of transactions. One judges one's engagement in this tech warehouse club store solely from one's own perspective. There is very little difference once one is in the American warehouse club store between it and its rivals--particularly the EU's Brussels Effect Club and the Chinese Belt & Road Initiative Warehouse Store. The difference is the cost of membership, the limitations of shopping elsewhere, and the quality and availability of goods and services of interest to those willing to pay the membership fees and abide by the rules. That, perhaps, is the fundamental insight of what is emerging post-globalization within global ordering. Everything else is of interest to public intellectuals and to those who would either destroy these emerging systems or shift them elsewhere--perhaps to local shopping districts.
7. Normative quality assurance. Products will be attractive to buyers, especially if they commit to long term attachment, only if those products meet quality measures. With tech quality measures are as much normative as they are operational. What Director Kratsios offers is American normative quality assurance--not with respect to the way that tech works, but with respect to the value enhancing factor in the operation of tech--data.
I also want to reiterate the independence and privacy that can be expected from AI technologies and infrastructure that have been Made In America. There are features of the American character—our commitment to property rights, to freedom, yes, even to endless lawsuits—that stand guard against danger to your sovereignty. (Remarks )That is a critical point worth savoring. When one buys or consumes tech one is also consuming the normative framework under which it was produced. That applies in equal measure to the tech on offer from the other greater powers--the E.U. and China. For some states the American normative quality baseline may be less appealing than that proffered by China, or Europe. But the reverse may be true. Not just tech, but norms also are for sale in this new era of the race for tech based dominance ("Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan" ).
Remarks by Director Kratsios at the APEC Digital and AI Ministerial Meeting
ACCELERATING AMERICAN AI EXPORTS
AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY
Incheon, Korea
August 5, 2025
THE DIRECTOR: Thank you for the kind introduction.
It is an honor and a privilege to speak to you today at this Global Digital and AI Forum, representing the United States of America and the administration of President Donald J. Trump.
As you no doubt know, on July 23rd, just two weeks ago, the White House published the President’s AI Action Plan. The plan outlines America’s national effort to remain the leader in pioneering AI and to be the global partner of choice as this technology transforms industries and information flows around the world.
The United States stands resolved to do all it can to accelerate AI innovation, to build out AI infrastructure, and to conduct AI diplomacy.
President Trump began executing the AI Action plan immediately, signing three executive orders following his remarks on the occasion. These included an executive order preventing U.S. government procurement of ideologically biased AI models, an order providing resources for the rapid construction of data centers and power systems, and, finally, an order promoting the export of full-stack American AI technology packages to allies and partners worldwide.
That is why I am here today. Our hope is that AI will be a powerful tool for bilateral diplomacy. We believe that by packaging the American AI stack and making it available to you, we can strengthen our friendships, empower each of our nations’ AI innovation, and secure a peaceful future of shared prosperity.
***
In his speech marking the release of the AI Action Plan, President Trump compared today’s technical-industrial contest to be the world leader in AI to the last century’s Space Race. The President called this AI race “a test of our capacities unlike anything since the dawn of the Space Age.”
Carrying forward that theme, my colleague David Sacks, White House AI Czar, has described the president’s Action Plan remarks as the most significant technology speech since President John F. Kennedy told the nation that America had chosen to go to the Moon.
History will prove Mr. Sacks right, I think. We know that here in 2025, we meet in a time much like the one President Kennedy described in 1962, “in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance.”
Our challenge is to confront the changes promised by AI with strength on behalf of our fellow citizens, and our hope is that these technologies will be tools for the growth and exercise of knowledge, and not instruments of ignorance and fear.
This AI race, the AI challenge, what Vice President J.D. Vance has called our AI opportunity, is then indeed very like the Space Race. It is, however, in one sense very unlike the contest that J.F.K. described, for I do not come here today to discuss a Moonshot. The race to lead the building of the future with wisdom and responsibility has no finish line.
As a representative of my government, I am here to discuss not the technology that may arise tomorrow but the technology ready for application today. I come to you not to talk of the promise of potential future technologies but of economic partnerships and the mutual prosperity we can achieve now.
***
The Trump administration believes that by extending human capacities and complementing human work, AI already heralds a new industrial revolution, information revolution, and even cultural renaissance.
For AI will empower discoveries in materials, chemicals, medicine, and energy. It has the potential to transform schooling, media, and communications, to retrieve forgotten things and point our eyes to the unnoticed. And this technology may, in representing a confident and hopeful step into the unknown, open doors we do not now even know to look for.
The true technological and new industrial revolution we look forward to today is not the frontier AI systems themselves, but what our peoples will do with them. AI applications as we experience them today already appear poised to be an enormous multiplier for improving our productivity—whether in the factory, the office, or the lab. AI technology is already enhancing the digital revolution in sectors such as health care and agriculture, and further enabling new industries such as robotics, drones, and self-driving vehicles.
Where it takes us next, the Trump administration believes, is for inventors to show us, but we will labor to ensure that it betters the lives of all of our citizens.
***
APEC was founded to be the premier forum for the support of economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region. The dawn of the AI age does not change that. Quite the contrary, I believe there has never been a greater opportunity to increase the dynamism and cooperation of the Asia-Pacific community than that presented by this technology.
Thanks to President Trump, American AI is open for business. We are ready to make deals under the dealmaker in chief. As we speak, the clock is ticking as my office at the White House and the Secretary of State assist the Secretary of Commerce in establishing the American AI Exports Program, which will carry out the development and deployment of the U.S. AI stack, packaged for each customer nation’s convenience.
The program is fielding proposals from the American AI industry for packages that will include AI-optimized hardware such as chips and servers, data center storage, cloud services, and networking; data pipelines and labeling systems; AI models and programs; security and cybersecurity systems; as well as AI applications for specific use cases such as software engineering, education, healthcare, agriculture, and transportation.
As needed, the United States is eager to employ all available U.S. Federal financial tools to support priority AI export packages. These include direct loans, loan guarantees, equity investments, co-financing, political risk insurance, credit guarantees, technical assistance, and feasibility studies.
President Trump’s administration is unapologetically America First. We want what is best for the American people, above all. Fortunately, as AI transforms the future of global commerce it presents an opportunity for mutual benefit.
We know you want what’s best for your country, too. With the AI export packages we are developing, we want you to have the AI sovereignty, data privacy, and technical customization that you so rightly demand on behalf of your peoples. We are committed to finding a way to enable America’s private companies to meet your national technological needs.
***
With the AI Action Plan, the Trump Administration is getting the Federal government out of the way of America’s AI innovators, to create space for real competition and creativity, so that companies can create the kinds of products every type of consumer will find truly useful. This administration seeks to free the power of private industry to commercialize breakthrough technologies, prevent monopoly, and build the future. It believes that the broad overregulation of AI incentivizes centralization and censorship.
America still holds a commanding lead in the race to provide the rest of the world with AI infrastructure and applications. The gap between the AI stack on offer from the United States and that of our closest competitors remains significant and undeniable. For the foundation of rival AI systems is American AI—American models and American AI discoveries. Old and mighty countries are the home and origin of many cultural and technological achievements, but the United States remains the nation of innovators and birthplace of AI.
Competitor nations may be following American innovations quickly, but they are still only following. American companies and American ideas still lead the way. But this is not just to make a claim about technical capacities or sophistication.
I also want to reiterate the independence and privacy that can be expected from AI technologies and infrastructure that have been Made In America. There are features of the American character—our commitment to property rights, to freedom, yes, even to endless lawsuits—that stand guard against danger to your sovereignty.
As made clear in the President’s Action Plan, the United States is committed to supporting the development and deployment of open-source and open-weight AI models. We understand that your governments and national champion businesses seek to carefully steward your people’s sensitive data, and so cannot always employ a closed proprietary model. Indeed, the best open-source and open-weight models may become industry standard setters. We are therefore taking concrete steps to enable and empower their developers.
***
This afternoon, I want to recognize that each of the APEC economies has a choice before it: You can follow the European model of fear and overregulation, and be inevitably left behind, succumbing to stasis as the states around you move forward in settling a new frontier and building a new future. Or you can take our offered handshake and make a deal. The next trailblazing breakthroughs will be made with and on American technology, and to fully harness them, you will want America’s AI infrastructure already in place.
While some states believe it is their task to construct and direct an industrial and scientific machine for their advancement, America has been the center of global science and technology and the world leader in techno-scientific development because our experiment in self-government has again and again given our innovators the freedom to launch mankind into new technological frontiers.
We believe the way of progress is found in human judgment and friendly cooperation, in political freedom and civic responsibility, in sovereignty and independence, not global governance and technocratic control.
This is why the president has called us to usher in a new Golden Age, to recapture the spirit of discovery and adventure that carved a new nation out of the wilderness, tamed the wilds of the West, and put human feet upon the moon. Americans have always been explorers, inventors, and pioneers, and have mastered each new frontier of science and technology and so made humanity safer, healthier, and more prosperous than ever before.
With the export of the American AI stack around the world, we continue that legacy.
Thank you.
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