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American Economic Statecraft

Remarks · Administration

Sacks in Riyadh: open the AI stack to allies, narrow the carve-out for adversaries.

The White House AI and Crypto Czar announces the rescission of the Biden diffusion rule and reframes allied chip access as strategic partnership, not proliferation risk.

Speaker
David SacksWhite House AI and Crypto Czar
Venue
Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum, Riyadh
Delivered
May 13, 2025
The Trump administration has just announced that we will be rescinding what's known as the Biden diffusion rule. It literally restricted the diffusion or proliferation of American technology all over the world. The original reason for this diffusion rule is that we have a policy of not wanting our advanced semiconductors to go to what are known as countries of concern; it was never intended to capture friends, allies and strategic partners.

The Riyadh remarks invert the default of the previous administration's export-control posture. Open access for capable partners is the rule. Adversary restriction is the carve-out. That inversion is the technical precondition for any allied-terrain AI buildout the doctrine envisions.

The Gulf setting matters. The doctrine's allied operators include sovereign capital partners that are not formal treaty allies. If American chips and models are going to set the global standard, the standard has to ship to the customers building the next industrial base, not just to the customers in NATO.