Tech continuity in President Trump’s first 100 days

Tech policy during President Trump’s first 100 days was marked by continuity rather than change, contrasting with more turbulent trade and environmental shifts. Only 9 of 139 executive orders (EOs) explicitly focused on technology.

Trump’s tech policy prioritised reviews and incremental adjustments. Public consultations on AI, cybersecurity, and cryptocurrencies signaled steady evolution over radical disruption.

Here, we revisit a forecast from January ahead of the online debate on Trump and Tech after the first 100 days on 30 April.

Policy continuity

Trump’s tech policy reinforces a business-centric approach consistent with over a century-long U.S. tech governance tradition.

The U.S. mantra of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” underpins its tech policy, supporting the tech industry’s core interests. However, the EU and other nations push for digital sovereignty, challenging this status quo. This trend could be accelerated with the spillover effect of U.S. tariffs. As restrictions on goods, services, people, and capital intensify, the tension between a unified Internet and a fractured geopolitical landscape grows.

Four flashpoints encapsulate this Catch-22: digital service taxes, regulatory pressure, content rules and AI data access.

Content governance

The most notable policy shift occurred on 20 January 2025, with the Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship EO, which scaled back misinformation initiatives. Meta’s 2025 alignment with Elon Musk’s content moderation rollback at X (formerly Twitter) amplified this trend.

Key debates include:

Platform Liability: Section 230’s future remains uncertain. Despite bipartisan reform interest, Trump has yet to address it directly, though leveraging it to hold companies accountable could reshape his current content policy.

Global Tensions: The EU’s Digital Services Act and Australia’s social media restrictions clash with Trump’s deregulatory stance, risking diplomatic friction.

AI: Aligning with global trends

On his first day in the office, Trump revoked Biden’s EO 14110, shifting from AI safety to a pro-business development focus. This shift also reflects a global change in AI governance from focusing on existential risks in 2023 to approaches balancing AI risks and opportunities. The 23 April 2025 EO on AI education introduced reforms to integrate AI into primary and university curricula.

A public consultation for a new AI Action Plan, with 8,755 comments, highlighted priorities: OpenAI emphasised the ideological aspect of AI competition with China, Google focused on competitiveness, and Anthropic stressed safety and security.

Vice President Vance’s speech at the AI Summit in Paris underscored development over restrictive safety regulations, signalling U.S. resistance to global AI governance initiatives.

Cybersecurity: A focus on China

Trump maintained continuity in cybersecurity, reviewing Biden-era policies while excluding “cognitive infrastructure” (e.g., misinformation) from cybersecurity realms—a return to infrastructure-focused protection. Internationally, export controls on China persisted, but Russia was removed from the cyber-threat list, aligning with the US’s overall geopolitical shift.

Digital economy: tariffs, taxes, regulations, and de minimis

Although the first 100 days did not bring any major developments in tech or the economy, the new set of tariffs introduced on 6th April could have the tech industry as ‘collateral damage’. It seems unlikely that the free flow of data—key for the tech sector—will remain possible if there are restrictions on the movement of other pillars of the modern economy: goods, services, people, and capital. With the current pause in introducing US tariffs, there will be more time to review risks on digital networks and the internet.

Apart from tariff tensions, the digital economy will be affected by the introduction of digital services taxes (DSTs). After failed OECD digital tax negotiations, many countries started implementing DST, ensuring that tech companies contribute to the local economies they profit from. France has imposed a 3 percent tax and the UK a 2 percent tax on revenue generated by their citizens’ use of search engines, social media platforms, and other e-services.

The US retaliated with counter-tariffs under Section 301 of the US Trade Act against Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Türkiye, and the UK. The Trump administration threatened to escalate countermeasures under Section 891 of the same Act, specifying double corporate taxes on firms from jurisdictions that tax US companies.

In the case of a trade war, it is also likely that countries will apply more stringent regulatory pressure against tech firms. Some interpret the EU’s measures against Meta and Facebook in this context.

On 2 April, Trump signed EO 14257, ending the de minimis exemption that allowed customs- and tax-free importation of goods under a certain value threshold. The new regulation will considerably impact Chinese companies such as Temu, which exported some US $240 billion in direct-to-consumer trade worldwide in 2024, accounting for 7 percent of its overseas sales and contributing 1.3 percent of China’s GDP.

Tariffs, taxes, and regulatory pressure are likely to lead to the fragmentation of the global digital economy. Economic fragmentation may trigger technical fragmentation through increased traffic filtering and divergent standards in a cascading effect. In the most radical scenario, such trends could result in the Internet splitting into separate, non-interoperable systems.

Cryptocurrencies: New dawn

Rewarding crypto industry support in the election campaign, Trump started with deregulation and crypto-friendly policies. EO 14178 (23 Jan 2025) revoked Biden’s crypto limits, banned a central bank digital currency, and established a regulatory working group. The 6 March 2025 EO created a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, allowing the Treasury to hold confiscated digital assets. These moves, while bold, raise concerns about market volatility and policy conflicts.

UN and U.S. digital diplomacy

U.S. digital diplomacy reflects the broader shift in Trump’s geopolitical strategy. For example, rapprochement with Russia led to a UN statement removing Russia from the list of nations designated as cyber threats. Other international processes, such as discussions at the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development, were impacted by U.S. opposition to including references to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and gender rights.

Another signal of U.S. priorities is the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) exclusion from organisations facing significant cuts to American funding, except for one small project. Analysts, including those at Geneva Solutions, attribute this to the ITU’s potential role in providing regulatory certainty for initiatives like Elon Musk’s space exploration ventures.

Conclusion: Continuity with international challenges

While Trump’s presidency may bring some shifts in tech policy, particularly around content regulation and AI, it will be shaped by the long-term continuity of the US tech policy prioritising private-sector innovation and resisting international regulatory efforts. However, maintaining this approach will require navigating growing tensions with the EU, China, and other countries that aim to increase their digital sovereignty, including data flow and economic gains from the Internet economy. 

Thus, Trump’s tech presidency will be less about regulatory revolution and more about preserving the status quo.