Senator Tom Cotton (R–Arkansas) sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick this week urging that U.S. government agencies and contractors be prohibited from using Chinese AI models. The letter was sent on Wednesday and was first shared with Semafor.
In the letter Cotton warned about the growing adoption of Chinese open-weight AI models in the United States. He wrote: “Backdoors may be embedded into open weight Chinese models, and auditing produces limited assurances. American companies, particularly those that do business with the US government, should never jeopardize our security for higher profits.”
Beyond a blanket prohibition, Cotton urged the Commerce Department to impose strict export controls on advanced compute and chipmaking equipment. He also recommended that the Trump administration "actively nurture an open AI ecosystem in the US to rival" China’s, arguing that many leading U.S. models are largely closed-source.
Cotton’s concerns center on national security risks and the limits of current auditing practices: the possibility of embedded backdoors in models and the insufficiency of audits to guarantee safety and integrity, particularly for companies contracting with the U.S. government.
The Commerce Department did not respond to a request for comment about the letter at the time it was made public.
Why this matters
If implemented, the ban and tightened export controls could change which AI tools federal agencies and their contractors are permitted to use, and affect the supply chains for advanced computing and chip production. The proposal also highlights ongoing policy debates about how to balance technological adoption, commercial interests, and national security in AI governance.
