Congress moves to ban Chinese AI from federal agencies with bipartisan support

The No Adversarial AI Act was introduced simultaneously in the House (H.R. 12345) and Senate on Jun. 25, 2025, to ban AI systems from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea across all executive branch agencies.

House China Committee Chair John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) co-sponsored the House version, while Senators Rick Scott (R-FL) and Gary Peters (D-MI) led the Senate companion, demonstrating rare bipartisan unity.

Security concerns about hidden backdoors and data collection in foreign AI platforms such as DeepSeek AI helped trigger the legislation.

The act requires every federal agency—from the Department of Defense to the Department of Agriculture—to audit existing AI tools, identify those from banned countries, and replace them with domestic or allied alternatives.

Rapid bipartisan agreement indicates classified intelligence community briefings on adversarial AI threats elevated the issue to a national security priority.

By treating AI systems as critical infrastructure akin to telecommunications networks, the legislation aims to prevent weaponization of decision-making and data-processing tools.