President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at blocking states from crafting their own regulations for artificial intelligence, saying the burgeoning industry is at risk of being stifled by a patchwork of onerous rules while in a battle with Chinese competitors for supremacy.

Members of Congress from both parties, as well as civil liberties and consumer rights groups, have pushed for more regulations on AI, saying there is not enough oversight for the powerful technology.

But Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that “there’s only going to be one winner” as nations race to dominate artificial intelligence, and China’s central government gives its companies a single place to go for government approvals.

“We have the big investment coming, but if they had to get 50 different approvals from 50 different states, you can forget it because it’s impossible to do,” Trump said.

The executive order directs the Attorney General to create a new task force to challenge state laws, and directs the Commerce Department to draw up a list of problematic regulations.

It also threatens to restrict funding from a broadband deployment program and other grant programs to states with AI laws.

David Sacks, a venture capitalist with extensive AI investments who is leading Trump’s policies on cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence, said the Trump administration would only push back on “the most onerous examples of state regulation” but would not oppose “kid safety” measures.

What states have proposed

Four states — Colorado, California, Utah and Texas — have passed laws that set some rules for AI across the private sector, according to the International Association of Privacy Professionals.

Those laws include limiting the collection of certain personal information and requiring more transparency from companies.

The laws are in response to AI that already pervades everyday life. The technology helps make consequential decisions for Americans, including who gets a job interview, an apartment lease, a home loan and even certain medical care. But research has shown that it can make mistakes in those decisions, including by prioritizing a particular gender or race.

States’ more ambitious AI regulation proposals require private companies to provide transparency and assess the possible risks of discrimination from their AI programs.

Beyond those more sweeping rules, many states have regulated parts of AI: barring the use of deepfakes in elections and to create nonconsensual porn, for example, or putting rules in place around the government’s own use of AI.

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“This is about silencing criticism of Israeli genocide in Gaza,” UC Riverside graduate Shaheen Nassar, whose family immigrated from the Palestinian territories, told City News Service. “Cheerleaders of the genocide do everything in the way of intimidation against people daring to speak out against it.”

President Donald Trump’s executive order to “Combat Antisemitism,” issued Jan. 30, gave agencies 60 days to submit details on legal resources and options to “punish anti-Jewish racism,” taking aim at “anti-American colleges and universities.”

A few agencies, including the Departments of Justice and Education, have already reacted.

Last week, federal law enforcement agents arrested antiwar activist-organizer Mahmoud Khalil from Columbia University, where sit-ins and other pro-Palestine demonstrations have been held since Israeli Defense Forces invaded Gaza in October 2023.

Khalil, who holds a green card, giving him permanent residency in the United States, is under threat of deportation.

Meantime, the Department of Education announced investigations targeting campuses for “antisemitic eruptions.” The schools stand to lose federal educational grants.

“Since Oct. 7, 2023, radical pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas faculty members and students targeted and harassed Jewish students, staff and faculty on the UCR campus,” Eran Vaisben, director of campus-based Inland & Desert Hillel, told CNS. “Legislation and policies that help (in) preventing the harassment and intimidation of Jewish students and faculty are appreciated.”

A UCR statement released to CNS indicated that between October 2023 and February 2025, there were 95 incidents “alleged to be hostile or offensive” to those identifying as Jewish. UCR was among dozens of campuses nationwide where pro-Palestine and antiwar encampments were held last spring. The university noted that “a number of reports” of antisemitism stemmed from “pro-Palestine graffiti, such as ‘Free Palestine’ stickers.” There were no documented acts of violence.

Of the half-dozen other colleges and universities in the inland region from which hate crime data was obtained, only Cal Baptist University in Riverside reported an antisemitic incident, involving unspecified vandalism in March 2024.

“The encampments were very peaceful, beautiful forms of civil disobedience, which is protected by the First Amendment,” Cal State San Bernardino Media Studies Professor Ahlam Muhtaseb, a Palestinian immigrant and member of the Temecula Valley Islamic Center, told CNS. “The encampment at UCLA, for example, was peaceful until malcontents, mainly Zionists, some of them Israelis, started attacking the encampment. It’s well documented. These people incurred on the encampment, and the students there just tried to push back.”

Muhtaseb said the president’s executive order is intended to “squash all criticism of Israel so only one narrative — the pro-Israel side — is prominent.”

“The policy is to give Israel support to continue its genocidal mission,” she said. “You can’t keep pushing anti-Constitutional policies and false narratives when it’s clear there’s a plan to continue ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their lands.”

Both the professor and Nassar have lost members of their extended families in Gaza and the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas raided Israel, targeting the Nova Music Festival. An estimated 1,200 Israeli civilians have died in the ensuing hostilities between the IDF and Hamas, which also took more than 200 hostages.

The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs indicated that as of March 11, 48,503 Palestinians have been confirmed killed — close to half of them children. Roughly 90% of the population has been displaced, suffering food shortages and lack of electricity. IDF aircraft, drone and artillery strikes have flattened or significantly damaged hospitals, schools, religious centers and homes, according to Amnesty International and other sources.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said that at least 170 journalists, the overwhelming majority of them Palestinians, had been killed in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon and Israel since October 2023.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Temecula, who is of Lebanese descent, told CNS in a statement he backs Trump’s order because “college campuses in every corner of the country and everywhere in between are no longer safe harbors for free speech.”

He acknowledged “the situation in Gaza is tragic,” but stood by his “friend of 20 years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” adding that “with President Trump’s leadership, there is a path to peace in the region.”

Issa’s “No Censors on Our Shores Act,” which recently won House Judiciary Committee approval, underscores the importance of “First Amendment rights” by seeking to prevent foreign agents from infringing on free speech exercised by American citizens at home. The proposal wouldn’t protect foreign nationals joining demonstrations on U.S. soil.

“I’m so Semitic, it hurts,” Nassar said. “Trump’s order against ‘antisemitism’ creates a chilling effect on speech. It’s weaponizing the language of anti-racism. It’s like with Israel, where they’ve conflated an entire population with militants, dehumanizing Palestinians.”

Attorney and Riverside Chabad Hanukkah Festival organizer Virginia Blumenthal told CNS some campuses “allowed things to get out of hand (last year), and that’s where the problems started.”

She didn’t offer an opinion on the justification for the executive order, but asserted the “legal and constitutional rights of people” shouldn’t be infringed because of political differences.

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Trump said in a post on Truth Social that his January executive order on digital assets would create a stockpile of currencies including bitcoin , ether , XRP , solana and cardano . The names had not previously been announced.

More than an hour later, Trump added: “And, obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be at the heart of the Reserve.”

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value, was up more than 11% at $94,164 Sunday afternoon. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, was up about 13% at $2,516.

The total cryptocurrency market has risen about 10%, or more than $300 billion, in the hours since Trump’s announcement, according to CoinGecko, a cryptocurrency data and analysis company.

XRP is cryptocurrency company Ripple Labs’ token. Ripple backed a so-called super PAC to influence congressional elections in November in favor of the crypto industry, Reuters reported.

“This move signals a shift toward active participation in the crypto economy by the U.S. government,” said Federico Brokate, head of U.S. business at 21Shares, a digital assets investment management firm. “It has the potential to accelerate institutional adoption, provide greater regulatory clarity, and strengthen the U.S.’s leadership in digital asset innovation.”

James Butterfill, head of research at asset manager CoinShares, said he was surprised to see digital assets other than bitcoin included in the reserve.

“Unlike bitcoin…these assets are more akin to tech investments,” Butterfill said. “The announcement suggests a more patriotic stance toward the broader crypto technology space, with little regard for the fundamental qualities of these assets.”

Trump won support from the crypto industry in his 2024 election bid, and he has quickly moved to back their policy priorities. He is hosting the first White House Crypto Summit on Friday, and his family has also launched its own coins.

Under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, regulators cracked down on the industry in a bid to protect Americans from fraud and money laundering.

Under Trump, the Securities and Exchange Commission has withdrawn investigations into several crypto companies and dropped a lawsuit against Coinbase (COIN.O), opens new tab, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S.

But in recent weeks cryptocurrency prices are down sharply, with some of the biggest digital currencies erasing nearly all of the gains made after Trump’s election win triggered a wave of excitement across the industry.

Analysts say the market needs a reason to move higher, such as signs that the U.S. Federal Reserve plans to cut interest rates or a clear pro-crypto regulatory framework from the Trump administration.

Reuters has reported that Geoff Kendrick, an analyst at Standard Chartered, is targeting bitcoin to hit $500,000, against a record high of $109,071, before Trump leaves office.

Regulatory filings in the U.S. showed that while hedge funds remain the dominant crypto buyers, banks and sovereign wealth funds are buying too.

Quarterly filings showed that asset managers boosted allocations to U.S. ETFs tied to the price of spot bitcoin in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Analysts and legal experts are divided on whether an act of Congress will be necessary to set up the reserve. Some have argued the reserve could be created via the U.S. Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund, which can be used to purchase or sell foreign currencies.

Trump’s crypto group had planned to look at potentially creating the stockpile with cryptocurrencies seized in law enforcement actions.

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