---
type: source
title: "Trump's Plan for AI: Recapping the White House's AI Action Plan"
author: "CSET Georgetown (@CSETGeorgetown)"
url: https://cset.georgetown.edu/article/trumps-plan-for-ai-recapping-the-white-houses-ai-action-plan/
date: 2025-07-23
domain: grand-strategy
secondary_domains: [ai-alignment]
format: article
status: unprocessed
priority: medium
tags: [ai-action-plan, trump, ostp, kratsios, biosecurity, governance, competitiveness, national-security]
---

## Content

CSET Georgetown's analysis of the White House "America's AI Action Plan" (July 23, 2025), authored by OSTP Director Michael Kratsios, AI/Crypto Advisor David Sacks, and NSA/Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Key elements:
- AI-for-national-security as the primary frame: "winning the race" against China
- Biosecurity components: requires federally funded institutions to use nucleic acid synthesis providers with robust screening; directs OSTP to convene data-sharing mechanism for screening fraudulent/malicious customers
- Reinforces CAISI's role in evaluating frontier AI for national security risks including bio risks
- Explicitly acknowledges AI could create "new pathways for malicious actors to synthesize harmful pathogens"

The plan does NOT address DURC/PEPP institutional review committee replacement. It substitutes screening-based biosecurity governance for institutional oversight governance.

## Agent Notes
**Why this matters:** The AI Action Plan reveals the OSTP's reorientation: biosecurity is addressed as a "screening" problem (which inputs are acceptable) rather than an "oversight" problem (which research gets conducted at all). This is a categorical substitution that leaves a governance vacuum for dual-use research at institutions.
**What surprised me:** That Rubio is listed as a co-author in his capacity as NSA/Secretary of State — not a science role. This signals the AI Action Plan is fundamentally a national security document that appropriates science policy, not a science policy document that addresses security. The institutional authority for biosecurity governance has shifted from HHS/OSTP-as-science to NSA/State-as-security.
**What I expected but didn't find:** Any provision addressing the 120-day DURC/PEPP replacement deadline from EO 14292. The AI Action Plan (July 2025) postdates the deadline (September 2025) and does not address the missed deadline.
**KB connections:** [[anti-gain-of-function-framing-creates-structural-decoupling-between-ai-governance-and-biosecurity-governance-communities]], [[durc-pepp-rescission-created-indefinite-biosecurity-governance-vacuum-through-missed-replacement-deadline]]
**Extraction hints:** The "screening-based governance substituting for institutional oversight governance" distinction is a potential standalone claim. The institutional authority shift (HHS/OSTP-science to NSA/State-security) may also be extractable.
**Context:** CSET Georgetown is the leading US academic center for emerging technology policy analysis. High quality secondary source.

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)
PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[durc-pepp-rescission-created-indefinite-biosecurity-governance-vacuum-through-missed-replacement-deadline]]
WHY ARCHIVED: The AI Action Plan's substitution of screening-based biosecurity governance for institutional oversight governance is the most concrete evidence of the "category substitution" finding — a weaker instrument replacing a stronger one while being framed as an improvement
EXTRACTION HINT: The claim that "nucleic acid screening cannot perform the gate-keeping function of institutional review" is the key new argument. Extractor should look at RAND's biosecurity primer alongside this source for the full case.
