WASHINGTON D.C. – Ahead of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, U.S. Representative Greg Stanton (AZ-04) joined his Democratic colleagues on the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party to call for the United States and China to reach an agreement on basic artificial intelligence safeguards.
Stanton emphasized that AI should be a major part of the two leaders’ conversations and stressed the need for the two countries to work together to prevent catastrophic misuse of the rapidly developing technology, drawing attention to the risks Washington and Beijing share.
This follows Stanton’s efforts ahead of the summit to ensure AI safety receives the immediate attention in Washington it deserves. Last week, he joined 26 of his Democratic colleagues on the House Foreign Affairs Committee in calling on Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to urge the administration to pursue sustained, substantive U.S.-China dialogue on AI safety risks and prioritize those issues in the upcoming bilateral summit.
Stanton also joined 106 of his colleagues in urging Speaker Mike Johnson to bring the House back into session to address the risks posed by advanced AI, including mass cybersecurity breaches and the development of biological or chemical weapons.
Full text of Stanton’s remarks as prepared is below, and video is HERE.
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Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today.
Tomorrow, leaders of the two most powerful AI nations on earth will sit across from each other. They’ll talk about trade, tariffs and Taiwan. . . but if they walk away without real progress on AI, they will have missed the mark.
I believe America can and will win the AI race, and I believe we have a duty to do so in a way that protects the interests of the American people. In America, innovation and safety go hand in hand. We can and must do both.
But President Trump’s full steam ahead, safety be damned approach to AI has to change. The consequences of inaction are incredibly serious.
Here at home, American workers are unprotected as AI rapidly transforms entire economies. American intellectual property is open to theft through distillation and other unauthorized use.
Beijing has their own concerns. But where our two nations need to come to a common understanding is the threats posed by a rogue actor using this technology for malicious ends.
Our critical infrastructure . . . including our energy grid . . . are exposed to AI-powered cyberattacks that could have catastrophic consequences for our communities.
That is why an agreement on basic safeguards between Trump and Xi is so critically important. And a promise to keep talking is not an agreement. Every month we wait to act, these problems get harder to fix.
I recognize it won’t be easy. In just the past few weeks, the Trump administration has accused Chinese AI companies of stealing intellectual property by distilling leading U.S. AI models . . . threatening sanctions. Beijing, for its part, has accused Washington of deliberately hindering Chinese AI development, seeing appeals for a slowdown as a way for the U.S. to lock in American companies’ lead.
But neither Washington nor Beijing wants a rogue actor using AI to launch a cyber attack that takes down the global economy, or to build and release a bioweapon. That shared concern is where cooperation has to start.
Question 1: Mr. Sheehan, tell us more about what you call “AI safety in parallel,” where the U.S. and China develop their own safeguards while sharing information and best practices. What are two or three concrete standards you believe both countries could find common ground, and what would meaningful cooperation on those standards look like?
Thank you. There is a contradiction between Trump’s safety be damned approach and his decision to ease access to advanced American chips. If China’s progress is the reason we supposedly cannot slow down for safety, why is the administration helping supply the technology that supports their progress?
That’s why I have been clear that we must prohibit the sale of the most advanced chips to China and apply those same prohibitions to all arms-embargoed nations.
Question 2: Mr. Sheehan, you’ve been engaged in Track II discussions with Chinese counterparts for years. How do we design export controls so that they protect our national security and technological advantage while also creating incentives for companies to invest in responsible development?
Thank you.