Republicans and Europe Agree: It’s Time to Make Life Easier for AI Companies

The White House and European leaders rarely see eye-to-eye on much, but they are gradually finding common ground on the issue of deregulating AI companies to spur even more unfettered development.

The EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, announced on Wednesday that it wants to “simplify†its AI and privacy laws. The move is impacting two major pieces of European tech regulation that have had a global impact: the first-of-its-kind AI Act of 2024 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a comprehensive online privacy law that reshaped the internet when it passed in 2018.

For the GDPR, that’s going to look like slashing data privacy laws for the sake of AI. Under the proposed changes, tech companies will have more leeway to use anonymized user data to train their AI models.

“Artificial intelligence is becoming a driving force of our economies, both in the tech sector and beyond, as it provides new solutions across industries. To be able to compete in this new global market, the EU must be able to fuel AI with high-quality data,†the Commission wrote while explaining the new changes.

The bloc’s sweeping cookie laws will also get a revamp. That set of regulations was to blame for the global influx of cookie pop-ups, as many companies found it easier to switch their systems completely rather than create a Europe-specific version of their websites. If the new proposals are accepted, the EU will reduce the pop-ups by allowing users to save their cookie preferences in browsers, in a move that was largely expected for some time now.

For the landmark AI Act, that simplification would include delaying the enforcement of some key facets. Although it went into law in 2024, the act’s stricter rules on AI systems that have been deemed “high-risk†were going to be applied after a grace period ending in August 2026. The latest proposal wants to delay that until “standards, specifications and guidelines are in place,†the Commission’s executive vice-president Henna Virkkunen said in remarks. High-risk AI includes technology that is used to profile people in use cases like biometrics, job applications, border control, and more.

These proposals are not law yet. They will first be submitted to the European Parliament, where they need the approval of a qualified majority.

The main objective of this regulatory loosening is to boost European tech competitiveness, the Commission said, and Wednesday’s proposals are apparently only “the first step.â€

While it’s not certain how much the Trump administration’s pro-tech anti-regulation push has impacted the European Commission’s thinking, one official wasn’t afraid to make the connection.

“No one is fooled over the transatlantic origin of these attempts,†the EU’s former commissioner for the internal market Thierry Breton wrote in an op-ed published by the Guardian. “We can’t let ourselves be intimidated.â€

President Trump has defined the EU’s attempts to regulate American tech as “overseas extortion,†and made fighting it a central point of his trade offensive against the EU. Standing ten toes behind him in this fight are Silicon Valley giants.

“Europe has an ever-increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there,†Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in January ahead of Trump’s inauguration. “We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies.â€

Meanwhile, it’s been a good day for AI companies stateside as well.

Republicans are gunning for a moratorium on state AI laws, either as a standalone bill or to be added to the National Defense Authorization Act, which is likely to be finalized soon and voted on next month. Trump posted in support of that in his Truth Social account on Tuesday night, saying that “we MUST have one Federal Standard instead of a patchwork of 50 State Regulatory Regimes.â€

It’s not clear, though, if that moratorium request would pass. A similar Republican attempt to add a moratorium in the Big Beautiful Bill fell through, mostly because of worries that it would help AI companies evade regulation on child safety laws.

But in his second term, Trump has been no fan of waiting for Congress to advise and consent. On Wednesday, The Verge obtained a draft of an executive order that the President is reportedly expected to sign as soon as Friday. The order would create an “AI Litigation Task Force†that would be charged with suing states over laws that are determined to obstruct the progress of Big Tech’s AI development.

But this time around, while Congress ponders that moratorium, a pro-AI group is forming on the sidelines. According to Axios, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will be co-chairing a new group that wants to “push back†on scrutiny of the AI industry. Called the AI Infrastructure Coalition, the organization will officially launch on Wednesday evening. The members allegedly include the usual pro-AI suspects like Andreessen Horowitz, Cisco, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and some energy companies.