On 1 July 2025, the US Senate passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA), the budget reform wanted by Donald Trump, which provides for billions of dollars in federal investments in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and drones.
The reform was passed without one part that was very worrying: a 10-year moratorium that would have prevented US states from introducing laws to regulate the use of artificial intelligence. Regulation would only have been possible at the federal level (in practice, only at Trump's discretion). The Senate rejected it with 99 votes against and only 1 in favour.
Such a moratorium would have granted wide latitude to Big Tech (such as Google, Meta, Amazon, etc.), relieving them of legal responsibilities at the state level and making many of the protections and safeguards guaranteed to citizens today inapplicable for a decade. Algorithmic discrimination laws - such as those prohibiting differential treatment based on race, gender or income in automated systems - would not have been enforceable by states. State regulations already in existence or under discussion - such as those passed in California and Colorado regarding consumer privacy - would have been suspended or rendered ineffective. States would not have been able to counter through their own laws critical phenomena related to the use of artificial intelligence, such as the generation of deepfakes, racial profiling, and bias in personnel selection or lending systems.
The checks and balances of the US system appear weak in the face of Trump's authoritarian turn.
Congress and the Supreme Court, in most cases, do not represent a significant obstacle, often limiting themselves to a passive or even complicit role. In this context, the legislative autonomy of the states appears as a vital counterweight, perhaps the last bastion against an authoritarian drift that threatens to undermine US democracy.
There will be other attempts to give operational freedom to Big Tech, to the detriment of citizens (American and others).
[Image from my “Broken Mirror” project]