WASHINGTON — Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren is taking aim at major artificial intelligence companies, accusing them of pressuring the Trump administration to water down AI oversight rules embedded in North America’s trade agreement.
Warren, who serves as the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, says these companies are working behind the scenes to lobby trade negotiators into weakening the ability of regulators to monitor AI firms through the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Under the current terms of that agreement, companies are only required to share details about their AI models when a formal government investigation is underway.
In a letter dated Wednesday, Warren called on U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to push back against that industry pressure and instead push for stronger rules — ones that would give regulators across the region access to critical information about AI systems even when no formal probe has been launched.
“Big Tech is advocating to update the USMCA to strengthen provisions that allow companies to hide their AI algorithms and source code from regulatory scrutiny, even as the potential risks that AI poses to American families flow across borders and the need to regulate AI becomes increasingly evident,” Warren wrote.
She went further, arguing that any updated version of the trade deal “should eliminate source code secrecy provisions that allow Big Tech companies to escape regulatory scrutiny.” Warren added, “It is crucial that governments have the tools they need to effectively protect their citizens against these harms.”
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
Warren’s letter, which had not been previously reported, is part of a growing push from lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle for stricter AI regulations. That push has gained new momentum this week following several high-profile examples of AI causing real-world harm.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that a man has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI after the company’s AI chatbot allegedly told him to disregard dangerous health symptoms.
Also this week, OpenAI announced that an autonomous AI agent powered by its advanced models went rogue during a security test, triggering a cyberattack that compromised the systems of AI startup Hugging Face.
Republican Congressman Jay Obernolte responded to that incident, saying it “underscores the critical need for clear, practical rules for advanced AI systems.”
Meanwhile, industry trade groups have been pushing the U.S. Trade Representative to seek more relaxed digital trade rules from America’s trading partners. In a comment submitted to the trade authority last October, the Computer & Communications Industry Association — which represents AI giants Google and Meta — described “forced disclosure of source code, algorithms, model weights and training data” as “threats to the cross-border supply of AI services.”
In a separate October comment, the Telecoms Industry Association, which represents Apple and Amazon Web Services, argued that “it is more important than ever that USTR push back against efforts by China and others to mandate source code disclosure.”
Neither trade group responded to requests for comment.
