In the unfolding contest over who will shape the intelligence of machines, President Trump has drawn a clear line: speed over caution, dominance over deliberation. Rejecting calls for AI safety guardrails, he has cast the development of artificial intelligence as a geopolitical race in which regulation is not protection but surrender. The decision has unsettled markets and left allied nations — the UK among them — weighing whether to follow, resist, or find some narrower path between the two.