Without any explicit statutory authority from Congress, and in near-total secrecy, President Donald Trump has assumed control over the release of powerful new frontier AI models through the functional equivalent of a licensing regime—determining the standards those models must meet, who can have access to them early, and when companies may release them to the public. Combined with the White House’s refusal to make its AI framework public and President Trump’s history of corruption and retaliation against enemies, these steps represent unprecedented and dangerous executive branch authority over frontier AI models, which may soon become the single most valuable economic, security, and information tool in the world.
Congress cannot stand by and allow President Trump, or any president, to exert sole control over one of the most powerful sectors of the U.S. economy and national security. Both chambers must take seriously frontier AI risks and the danger of the Trump administration’s de facto AI model licensing system. Congress must immediately launch hearings and begin work to address frontier AI risks through an AI governance framework with clear processes and requirements for frontier models as well as an ability for the executive branch to temporarily restrict an AI model. In addition, clear guardrails must be established for any attempts to restrict an AI model, including mandatory disclosures, judicial review and access to courts, and even congressional overrides.
What are frontier AI models?
Frontier AI models can be defined as “highly capable general-purpose AI models that can perform a wide variety of tasks and match or exceed the capabilities present in today’s most advanced models,” meaning that the term is a moving relative benchmark.
Frontier AI developers usually refer to the U.S. frontier labs of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, which have a clear lead in advanced AI models, though other U.S. companies, including Meta, Nvidia, and Microsoft, are also developing frontier AI models, as are Chinese companies such as Deepseek and Moonshot AI.
The 2026 International AI Safety Report categorizes the “risks from general-purpose AI systems that arise at the frontier of their capabilities” into three categories: 1) “Risks from misuse, where actors deliberately use AI systems to cause harm,” including assisting in cyber or chemical, biological, and radiological attacks; 2) “Risks from malfunctions, where AI systems fail or behave in unexpected and harmful ways,” including loss of control and misalignment of advanced AI; and 3) “Systemic risks, which arise from widespread deployment across society and the economy,” such as mass job displacement. The June executive order was triggered by the frontier AI lab Anthropic’s development of the Mythos frontier AI model, which had advanced cybersecurity abilities that posed new frontier AI risk.
Trump’s “voluntary” framework amounts to a de facto licensing regime
Since Anthropic’s announcement of its Mythos model’s breakthrough cybersecurity abilities in April, the Trump administration has taken the following unprecedented steps:
No single step creates a licensing regime, but together they amount to one. The characterization of this as a de facto licensing system comes from experts across the political spectrum.
The administration’s actions are a stark contradiction to the June 2 AI executive order, which stated: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the creation of a mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance, or permitting requirement for the development, publication, release, or distribution of new AI models, including frontier models.” Less than two weeks later, on June 12, the U.S. Department of Commerce applied export controls to Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models, removing the public’s access to the models, which sent a clear message about the “voluntary” nature of the government’s program.
Already, this is having the intended effect on frontier AI developers. On June 26, just two weeks after the Commerce Department imposed export controls on Anthropic, OpenAI previewed GPT-5.6, explicitly noting:
As part of our ongoing engagement with the U.S. government, we previewed our plans and the models’ capabilities ahead of today’s launch. At their request, we are starting with a limited preview for a small group of trusted partners whose participation has been shared with the government, before releasing more broadly.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also tweeted: “Bad news: at the request of the US government, it is launching today in limited preview instead of the open access launch we were planning on. We are working with the government to get to general availability as fast as we can.” Later, on July 8, Axios reported: “The Trump administration has given OpenAI the green light for a broad launch of its advanced GPT-5.6 model,” formalizing the practice of government approval for public release of frontier AI models.
OpenAI may have “voluntarily” agreed to the government’s request to limit its release of the GPT-5.6 model, but it is certain that the company took note of what the U.S. government had done to Anthropic—in the same way that OpenAI took note of what the U.S. government did to Anthropic for attempting to negotiate its contract to provide AI services on classified systems the day before OpenAI signed its own contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to provide AI services on classified systems.
The Trump administration’s unprecedented use of export controls on Anthropic serves as an implicit threat for all future frontier AI models. A program is “voluntary” in name only when the administration is punishing companies for not complying with its requests and pressuring others to join.
Potential for executive overreach raises risks for frontier AI governance
This new AI licensing system is also a stunning turn of events for a president who has said “it will be a policy of the United States to do whatever it takes to lead the world in artificial intelligence” and campaigned and delivered on the promise to “repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation.” It should be noted that President Biden’s 2023 AI executive order only included two principal categories of regulations on AI and cloud companies—both of which were small in comparison to the program the Trump administration has assembled.
The Center for American Progress has written previously that the executive branch may need to take action against an AI model that poses a risk to American national security interests. The Trump administration’s actions against Anthropic’s Mythos model may have been legitimate or even similarly carried out by another administration.
But the second Trump administration has a long history of marshaling the full power of the federal government to target its enemies. Since February, the Department of Defense has been carrying out an unprecedented legal and political fight with Anthropic, with the administration fighting in federal courts to designate the company a “supply chain risk” and separately designating the company’s Mythos and Fable models for export controls. Additionally, Trump appointed officials have attempted to punish and control the speech of their critics and taken aim at the acceptable outputs from generative AI, even issuing an executive order to prevent “woke AI.” Due to these attempts, it is easy to imagine the administration secretly demanding unconstitutional content directives from frontier AI models as a condition of release. This history of abuse of power, bad blood with Anthropic, and secrecy around the Trump administration’s response to Mythos and subsequent refusal to make the new “voluntary framework” public mean that the Trump administration’s actions leave little reason to give it the benefit of the doubt.
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This secretive “voluntary framework” provides no comfort to the public, other AI companies, U.S. allies, or even adversaries. No president—even one like Donald Trump, whose administration has been accused of widespread corruption—should be able to exercise sole power over such powerful tools.
Today, the absence of formal public rules and disclosure means the Trump administration could hypothetically determine that the Republican National Committee (RNC) is a “trusted partner” that could receive access to the latest AI models ahead of the election but the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is not—potentially giving one side a significant advantage ahead of Election Day. And it could do it all in secret. Similarly, the president could decide to not approve or to restrict the release of a company’s latest frontier AI model while allowing a competitor AI company—perhaps one in which he or his family has invested—to release its AI model. Under the Trump administration’s de facto AI model licensing system, the potential for abuse is too great.
Congress must demand answers and step in to establish frontier AI safeguards
Congress must act now. Several senators have already sent a letter to the administration seeking critical information about the new “voluntary framework.” After the August recess, Congress should immediately convene hearings on both the administration’s actions around the Mythos model export controls and the GPT-5.6 restricted rollout, as well as the impact of the administration’s de facto AI model licensing system. If this Congress will not hold hearings on these topics for fear of upsetting the administration, this topic should be on the top of the list for the next Congress.
The future of American frontier AI is too important to allow this president, or any president, to have sole control over the release of new AI models.
Lawmakers should also begin work immediately on frontier AI governance, not only to address the president’s actions but to curb the significant risks from frontier models, such as the numerous recently disclosed rogue model hacking incidents. Significant efforts are needed to build a robust frontier AI governance framework with clear processes, requirements, and safeguards for frontier models. That frontier AI governance may require Congress to provide the president with a clear temporary ability to restrict AI models with guardrails and protections. Congress must also ensure that any administration’s actions to restrict AI models—including open-source or open-weight models—are subject to mandated disclosure, judicial review and access to courts, and even potential congressional override regardless of the authority used. The recently introduced Frontier Act and AI Kill Switch Act both represent early attempts to address some of these critical issues, and Congress must continue the work of crafting an AI governance framework.
Congress must also ensure measures are taken to allay people’s worst fears about AI, such as by prohibiting the most harmful uses of AI and addressing the concerns about job displacement. The public’s increasing distrust of AI, increasingly manifesting as anger at data centers, will not be solved by frontier AI governance alone.
Conclusion
In the span of months, this administration has gone from one that promised never to have licensing or preclearance of AI models to one individually approving the release of the latest AI models under its new secretive de facto AI model licensing system. The future of American frontier AI is too important to allow this president, or any president, to have sole control over the release of new American AI models. Congress must act immediately.