U.S. presidential administrations tend to have big impacts on tech around the world. So it should be taken as a given that when Donald Trump returns to the White House in January, his second administration will do the same. Perhaps more than usual, even, as he staffs his cabinet with people closely linked to the Heritage Foundation, the Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank behind the controversial 900-page Mandate for Leadership (also known as Project 2025). The incoming administration will affect far more than technology and engineering, of course, but here at IEEE Spectrum, we’ve dug into how Trump’s second term is likely to impact those sectors.
Read on to find out more, or click to navigate to a specific topic. This post will be updated as more information comes in.
During Trump’s campaign, he vowed to rescind President Joe Biden’s 2023 executive order on AI, saying in his platform that it “hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology.” Experts expect him to follow through on that promise, potentially killing momentum on many regulatory fronts, such as dealing with AI-generated misinformation and protecting people from algorithmic discrimination.
However, some of the executive order’s work has already been done; rescinding it wouldn’t unwrite reports or roll back decisions made by various cabinet secretaries, such as the Commerce secretary’s establishment of an AI Safety Institute. While Trump could order his new Commerce secretary to shut down the institute, some experts think it has enough bipartisan support to survive. “It develops standards and processes that promote trust and safety—that’s important for corporate users of AI systems, not just for the public,” saysDoug Calidassenior vice president of government affairs for the advocacy group Americans for Responsible Innovation.
As for new initiatives, Trump is expected to encourage the use of AI for national security. It’s also likely that, in the name of keeping ahead of China, he’ll expand export restrictions relating to AI technology. Currently, U.S. semiconductor companies can’t sell their most advanced chips to Chinese firms, but that rule contains a gaping loophole: Chinese companies need only sign up for U.S.-based cloud computing services to get their computations done on state-of-the-art hardware. Trump may close this loophole with restrictions on Chinese companies’ use of cloud computing. He could even expand export controls to restrict Chinese firms’ access to foundation models’ weights—the numerical parameters that define how a machine learning model does its job. —Eliza Strickland
Trump plans to implement hefty tariffs on imported goods, including a 60 percent tariff on goods from China, 25 percent on those from Canada and Mexico, and a blanket 10 or 20 percent tariff on all other imports. He’s pledged to do this on day 1 of his administration, and once implemented, these tariffs would hike prices on many consumer electronics. According to a report published by the Consumer Technology Association in late October, the tariffs could induce a 45 percent increase in the consumer price of laptops and tablets, as well as a 40 percent increase for video game consoles, 31 percent for monitors, and 26 percent for smartphones. Collectively, U.S. purchasing power for consumer technology could drop by US $90 billion annually, the report projects. Tariffs imposed during the first Trump administration have continued under Biden.
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration may take a less aggressive stance on regulating Big Tech. Under Biden, the Federal Trade Commission has sued Amazon for maintaining monopoly power and Meta for antitrust violations, and worked to block mergers and acquisitions by Big Tech companies. Trump is expected to replace the current FTC chair Lina Khan, though it remains unclear how much the new administration—which bills itself as anti-regulation—will affect the scrutiny Big Tech is facing. Executives from major companies including Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Inteland Qualcomm congratulated Trump on his election on social media, primarily X. (The CTA also issued congratulations.) – Gwendolyn Rak
Cryptocurrencies
On 6 November, the day the election was called for Trump, Bitcoin jumped 9.5 percentclosing at over US $75,000—a sign that the cryptocurrency world expects to boom under the next regime. Donald Trump marketed himself as a pro-crypto candidate, vowing to turn America into the “crypto capital of the planet” at a Bitcoin conference in July. If he follows through on his promises, Trump could create a national bitcoin reserve by holding on to bitcoin seized by the U.S. government. Trump also promised to remove Gary Gensler, the chair of the Securities and Exchanges Commission, who has pushed to regulate most cryptocurrencies as securities (like stocks and bonds), with more government scrutiny.
While it may not be within Trump’s power to remove him, Gensler is likely to resign when a new administration starts. It is within Trump’s power to select the new SEC chair, who will likely be much more lenient on cryptocurrencies. The evidence lies in Trump’s pro-crypto cabinet nominations: Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary, whose finance company oversees the assets of the Tether stablecoin; Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who has said in a post that “Bitcoin is the currency of freedom”; and Tulsi Gabbard for the Director of National Intelligence, who had holdings in two cryptocurrencies back in 2018. As Trump put it at that Bitcoin conference, “the rules will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry.” —Kohava Mendelsohn
Energy
Trump’s plans for the energy sector focus on establishing U.S. “energy dominance,” mainly by boosting domestic oil and gas production, and deregulating those sectors. To that end, he has selected oil services executive Chris Wright to lead the U.S. Department of Energy. “Starting on day 1, I will approve new drilling, new pipelines, new refineries, new power plants, new reactors, and we will slash the red tape,” Trump said in a campaign speech in Michigan in August.
Trump’s stance on nuclear power, however, is less clear. His first administration provided billions in loan guarantees for the construction of the newest Vogtle reactors in Georgia. But in an October interview with podcaster Joe RoganTrump said that large-scale nuclear builds like Vogtle “get too big, and too complex and too expensive.” Trump periodically shows support for the development of advanced nuclear technologies, particularly small modular reactors (SMRs).
As for renewables, Trump plans to “terminate” federal incentives for them. He vowed to gut the Inflation Reduction Acta signature law from the Biden Administration that invests in electric vehicles, batteries, solar and wind power, clean hydrogen, and other clean energy and climate sectors. Trump trumpets a particular distaste for offshore wind, which he claims will end “on day 1” of his next presidency.
The first time Trump ran for president, he vowed to preserve the coal industry, but this time around, he rarely mentioned it. Coal-fired electricity generation has steadily declined since 2008despite Trump’s first-term appointment of a former coal lobbyist to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. For his next EPA head, Trump has nominated former New York Representative Lee Zeldin—a play expected to be central to Trump’s campaign pledges for swift deregulation. —Emily Waltz
Transportation
The incoming administration hasn’t laid out too many specifics about transportation yet, but Project 2025 has lots to say on the subject. It recommends the elimination of federal transit funding, including programs administered by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). This would severely impact local transit systems—for instance, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City could lose nearly 20 percent of its capital funding, potentially leading to fare hikes, service cuts, and project delays. Kevin DeGoodDirector of Infrastructure Policy at the Center for American Progresswarns that “taking away capital or operational subsidies to transit providers would very quickly begin to result in systems breaking down and becoming unreliable.” DeGood also highlights the risk to the FTA’s Capital Investment Grantswhich fund transit expansion projects such as rail and bus rapid transit. Without this support, transit systems would struggle to meet the needs of a growing population.
Project 2025 also proposes spinning off certain Federal Aviation Administration functions into a government-sponsored corporation. DeGood acknowledges that privatization can be effective if well-structured, and he cautions against assuming that privatization inherently leads to weaker oversight. “It’s wrong to assume that government control means strong oversight and privatization means lax oversight,” he says.
Project 2025’s deregulatory agenda also includes rescinding federal fuel-economy standards and halting initiatives like Vision Zerowhich aims to reduce traffic fatalities. Additionally, funding for programs designed to connect underserved communities to jobs and services would be cut. Critics, including researchers from Berkeley Lawargue that these measures prioritize cost-cutting over long-term resilience.
Trump has also announced plans to end the US $7,500 tax credit for purchasing an electric vehicle. —Willie D. Jones
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