China’s innovation in artificial intelligence is ‘accelerating,’ according to Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology. He told Fox News Digital that the United States’ ‘promote and protect’ strategy will solidify its standing as the world’s dominant power in AI.

Kratsios, who served as chief technology officer during the first Trump administration, sat for an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital on Monday.

‘The White House in the first Trump administration redefined national tech policy to focus on American leadership in emerging technologies, and those were technologies like artificial intelligence, quantum computing and 5G, [which] were big back then,’ Kratsios said. ‘The president, at that time, signed the executive order prioritizing U.S. leadership in AI, back in 2019 when people weren’t even talking about it.’

‘He recognized that it was critical for the U.S. to lead in AI,’ Kratsios said. ‘We got the ball rolling on what the U.S. national strategy is and how we would win.’ 

During his first administration, Trump signed the first-ever executive order on AI in 2019. He also took executive action in 2020 to establish the first-ever guidance for federal agency adoption of AI to deliver services to the American people and ‘foster public trust’ in the technology. 

But Kratsios said that when former President Joe Biden took office, the attitude of his administration toward AI shifted to ‘one of fear and one of over-regulation.’ 

‘There was a fixation on what I would call harms, so, spending time and energy thinking about all the things that could go wrong with this technology, versus having a balanced approach, where you try to minimize things that could go poorly, and more importantly, look at ways this technology can transform America for the better,’ Kratsios explained, noting that Biden officials were ‘harms focused,’ which he said was ‘manifested in a lot of the policies that they did, in the way that they were very reticent to applying some of this technology to a lot of the issues that government faced, like how you make agencies more efficient.’ 

Kratsios reflected on Trump’s AI message during the campaign, saying he ‘made it very clear that we as a country need to win and be dominant in artificial intelligence.’ 

‘And he acted very decisively,’ Kratsios said, pointing to Trump’s move on his third day in office to direct him and other officials to develop an AI action plan. 

‘It was a way to review everything that had been done under the Biden administration and turn the page with an agenda that’s focused on sustaining and ensuring continued U.S. leadership in this particular technology, and that’s what we’ve been working on,’ Kratsios said. 

Kratsios explained that the U.S. is ‘the leader’ in AI, specifically when it comes to the ‘three layers of technology,’ which he said are chips or high-end semiconductors, the model itself and the application layer. 

‘If you look at all three of those layers, the U.S. is the leader,’ Kratsios said. ‘We have the best chips. We have the best models. And we have the best applications to date.’ 

But he warned that the Trump administration is ‘seeing the velocity of innovation’ from China.

‘We’re seeing the speed at which the PRC is catching up with us is actually accelerating,’ he explained. 

Kratsios referenced DeepSeek, which was released by a Chinese firm earlier in 2025 and develops large language models.

‘I think what DeepSeek revealed is that the Chinese continue to make progress and are trying really hard to catch up with us on those three layers,’ Kratsios said. 

But the key to maintaining U.S. dominance in the space is the Trump administration’s ‘promote and protect’ strategy, Kratsios explained. 

Kratsios said the Trump administration will ‘promote’ by continuing to accelerate the development of technology and encouraging more Americans, American companies and countries around the world to use that technology. 

‘And then on the protect side, what is it that the U.S. has which could be useful to the PRC to accelerate their efforts in AI? We protect that technology from access by the Chinese,’ Kratsios said, pointing to high-end semiconductors and chips that the Chinese ‘shouldn’t have access to, because that would make it easier for them to accelerate their efforts.’ 

‘How do we speed up innovation here at home and slow down our adversaries?’ Kratsios said. 

The answer, Kratsios said, is AI research and development that continues to drive innovation. He also said the Trump administration needs to continue to remove regulations and barriers to AI innovation, and also prepare and train Americans in the workforce to ‘better leverage this technology.’ 

Kratsios said another step is ensuring that foreign allies partner with the U.S. to ‘make sure that they are also keeping the PRC at bay and that they continue to use the American AI stack.’ 

‘So, if you’re any country in the world that wants to use AI, you’d want to use an American stack,’ he explained. ‘So we should make it as easy as possible in order for us to export our technology to like-minded partners.’ 

As for China, Kratsios said the PRC ‘is probably one of the most sophisticated surveillance states in the world, and that is underpinned by their own artificial intelligence technology.’ 

‘I think the goal of the United States should be to continue to be the dominant power in AI. And there are certain inputs to the development of AI which we can control, and which we would not want the PRC to have access to,’ he said. ‘And the most important pieces are sort of these very high-end chips that they can use to train models, and also certain equipment that would allow them to build their own very high-end chips.’ 

He added: ‘And if we can kind of continue to make it challenging for them to do that. I think it’ll be the benefit of the U.S.’ 

Looking ahead, Kratsios echoed the president, saying the U.S. is in the ‘golden age’ and that this special moment in time is ‘underpinned by unbelievable science and technology.’ 

‘We want to put an American flag on Mars,’ Kratsios said. ‘We want to fly supersonic again. We want drones to be delivering packages around the world. We want AI to be used by American workers to allow them to do their jobs better, safer and faster.’ 

He added: ‘We have an opportunity to all these things, like so much more, in these four years. And this office is going to be the home for driving that innovation across so many technological domains.’ 

President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed to hike the Pentagon budget to over $1 trillion for the first time ever. 

Speaking to reporters alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said the upcoming budget would be ‘in the vicinity’ of $1 trillion, a major boost from this year’s $850 billion budget. 

‘COMING SOON: the first TRILLION dollar @DeptofDefense budget,’ Hegseth posted on X. 

He said Trump is ‘is rebuilding our military – and FAST.’

The budget for all national security programs, including the Department of Defense, nuclear weapons development and other security agencies, is at $892 billion for this year. 

Moving to a $1 trillion Pentagon budget would be a 12% increase over current levels. 

But the $1 trillion budget idea comes just as the Pentagon has moved to cut 8% each year for five years from each program to reinvest in modernization. The department is also planning to slash tens of thousands from its civilian workforce and consolidate bases across the world. 

‘We’re going to be approving a budget, and I’m proud to say, actually, the biggest one we’ve ever done for the military,’ he said. ‘$1 trillion. Nobody has seen anything like it.

‘We are getting a very, very powerful military. We have things under order now.’

White House officials are expected to unveil their budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 later this spring before Congress hashes out the appropriations process. 

Even a $1 trillion budget would not put the U.S. at Trump’s stated target for NATO countries to spend on defense: 5%. 

But the president said the cash influx would be used to kickstart production on new equipment and technologies. 

‘We’ve never had the kind of aircraft, the kind of missiles, anything that we have ordered,’ he said. ‘And it’s in many ways too bad that we have to do it because, hopefully, we’re not going to have to use it.’

The Trump administration recently unveiled a Boeing contract for the Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter jet, the F-47, which the service branch expects to cost around $20 billion from 2025 to 2029. 

‘We know every other plane,’ Trump said. ‘I’ve seen every one of them and it’s not even close. This is a next level.’

An announcement on the Navy’s next-generation fighter jet, F/A-XX, has been stalled, while chief of naval operations Adm. James Kirby told reporters Monday work on the new jet’s contract was taking place at ‘secretary-level and above.’ 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Tuesday said the U.S. will take back the Panama Canal from ‘China’s influence’ as Washington tries to reassert control over the major trade route. 

‘The United States of America will not allow communist China or any other country to threaten the canal’s operation or integrity,’ he said during a press event from the Central American nation. ‘To this end, the United States and Panama have done more in recent weeks to strengthen our defense and security cooperation than we have in decades.

‘Together we will take back the Panama Canal from China’s influence,’ he added.

Panama has repeatedly rejected the Trump administration’s claims that China effectively controls the canal as it operates two major ports on either end of the waterway. 

However, the Central American nation withdrew from its 2017 Belt and Road Initiative agreements with Beijing earlier this year in a signal that Panama has chosen to side with the Trump administration in this geopolitical spat.

Hegseth laid out a litany of joint exercises, operations and the general presence of the U.S. military in and around the canal in a move to counter China, though Fox News Digital could not immediately reach the Pentagon to confirm whether this signified an increase in U.S. presence in the region.

‘Our relationship with Panama, especially our security relationship, will continue to grow in the months and years ahead,’ Hegseth said. ‘Our relationship is growing in part to meet communist China’s rising challenges.’

The defense secretary said China-based companies continue to install ‘critical infrastructure’ in the canal, which gives China the ‘potential’ ability to ‘conduct surveillance.’

‘This makes Panama and the United States less secure, less prosperous, less sovereign,’ he added.  

‘I want to be very clear. China did not build this canal. China does not operate this canal, and China will not weaponize this canal,’ Hegseth said.

The Chinese embassy in D.C. did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

House Republicans are divided over how to proceed on a massive piece of legislation aimed at advancing President Donald Trump’s agenda as a possible vote on the measure looms Wednesday afternoon.

Fiscal hawks are rebelling against GOP leaders over plans to pass the Senate’s version of a sweeping framework that sets the stage for a Trump policy overhaul on the border, energy, defense and taxes.

Their main concern has been the difference between the Senate and House’s required spending cuts, which conservatives want to offset the cost of the new policies and as an attempt to reduce the national deficit. The Senate’s plan calls for a minimum of $4 billion in cuts, while the House’s floor is much higher at $1.5 trillion.

‘The problem is, I think a lot of people don’t trust the Senate and what their intentions are, and that they’ll mislead the president and that we won’t get done what we need to get done,’ Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., told reporters on Tuesday. ‘I’m a ‘no’ until we figure out how to get enough votes to pass it.’

McCormick said there were as many as 40 GOP lawmakers who were undecided or opposed to the measure.

A meeting with a select group of holdouts at the White House on Tuesday appeared to budge a few people, but many conservatives signaled they were largely unmoved.

‘I wouldn’t put it on the floor,’ Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told reporters after the White House meeting. ‘I’ve got a bill in front of me, and it’s a budget, and that budget, in my opinion, will increase the deficit, and I didn’t come here to do that.’

Senate GOP leaders praised the bill as a victory for Trump’s agenda when it passed the upper chamber in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Trump urged all House Republicans to support it in a Truth Social post on Monday evening.

Meanwhile, House Republican leaders like Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., have appealed to conservatives by arguing that passing the Senate version does not in any way impede the House from moving ahead with its steeper cuts.

The House passed its framework in late February.

Congressional Republicans are working on a massive piece of legislation that Trump has dubbed ‘one big, beautiful bill’ to advance his agenda on border security, defense, energy and taxes.

Such a measure is largely only possible via the budget reconciliation process. Traditionally used when one party controls all three branches of government, reconciliation lowers the Senate’s threshold for passage of certain fiscal measures from 60 votes to 51. As a result, it has been used to pass broad policy changes in one or two massive pieces of legislation.

Passing frameworks in the House and Senate, which largely only include numbers indicating increases or decreases in funding, allows each chamber’s committees to then craft policy in line with those numbers under their specific jurisdictions. 

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus have pushed for Johnson to allow the House GOP to simply begin crafting its bill without passing the Senate version, though both chambers will need to eventually pass identical bills to send to Trump’s desk.

‘Trump wants to reduce the interest rates. Trump wants to lower the deficits. The only way to accomplish those is to reduce spending. And $4 billion is not – that’s … anemic. That is really a joke,’ Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., told reporters.

He said ‘there’s no way’ the legislation would pass the House this week.

The measure will likely go through the House Rules Committee, which acts as the final gatekeeper for most legislation getting a chamber-wide vote.

However, tentative plans for a late-afternoon House Rules Committee meeting on the framework, which would have set up a Wednesday vote, were scrapped by early evening on Tuesday.

The legislation could still get a House-wide vote late on Wednesday if the committee meets in the morning.

As for the House speaker, he was optimistic returning from the White House meeting on Tuesday afternoon.

‘Great meeting. The president was very helpful and engaged, and we had a lot of members whose questions were answered,’ Johnson told reporters. ‘I think we’ll be moving forward this week.’

Fox News’ Ryan Schmelz and Aishah Hasnie contributed to this report.

Wall Street rebounded into the green as multiple foreign countries came to the tariff negotiating table with President Donald Trump – but that was not enough to assuage some lawmakers’ critiques of the ‘alla prima’ tariff actions, as one Republican put it.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer testified Tuesday the U.S. has long-suffered from ‘China Shock’ – the surge in manufacturing outputs from the Communist nation since the turn of the century – and that the U.S. had to do something substantive but strategic about the 5 million manufacturing jobs lost and 90,000 factories closed since the middle of the Clinton administration.

‘President Biden left us with a $1.2 trillion trade deficit-in-goods – the largest of any country in the history of the world,’ Greer said.

‘During COVID, we were unable to procure semiconductors to build our cars or materials for pharmaceuticals and personal protective equipment. During World War II, we built nearly 9,000 ships. Last year, the United States built only three ocean-going vessels,’ he said.

Greer said the U.S. historically was on the surplus side of agriculture trade but that, as of late, purportedly friendly countries like Australia have essentially rejected beef and pork exports, while America has not reciprocated with their livestock.

That became a sore subject during a particularly heated exchange between Greer and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., as the lawmaker claimed Trump unnecessarily ‘clobbered’ Canberra with a 10% tariff.

‘We have a free trade agreement with Australia,’ he said, questioning Trump’s ‘fancy Greek formula’ for determining tariffs.

Democrats and media figures previously mocked Trump for tariffing uninhabited Australian islands in the Indian Ocean – which Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested over the weekend was to close any potential loophole to circumvent tariffs on such countries’ mainland.

Greer argued the ‘lowest rate available’ was imposed on Australia, leading Warner to ask again ‘why did they get whacked in the first place.’

‘Despite the [free trade] agreement, they ban our beef, they banned our pork, they’re getting ready to impose measures on our digital companies – It’s incredible,’ Greer said.

Warner later acknowledged markets had rebounded a ‘blip’ by midday but said a Wall Street contact equated it to a ‘good day in hospice.’

Meanwhile, during his opening remarks, Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden said he has drafted a bipartisan resolution to ‘end the latest crop of global tariffs that are clobbering American families and small businesses.’

‘Members on both sides of the aisle ought to know that this is a call to action and Congress must step in to rein this president on trade,’ Wyden said.

He called the tariffs ‘aimless’ and ‘chaotic’ and said it showed Congress ceded the executive branch too much constitutional power.

In his testimony, Greer called trade imbalance an indicator of both an economic and national security emergency.

He also suggested America’s allies have been foisting unfair policies on the American consumer – including the European Union.

‘[They] can sell us all the shellfish they want, but the EU bans shellfish from 48 states. The result is a trade deficit in shellfish with the EU,’ he said.

‘We only charge a 2.5% tariff on ethanol, but Brazil charges us an 18% tariff. The result? We have a large trade deficit in ethanol with Brazil.’

‘Our average tariff on agricultural goods is 5%, but India’s average tariff is 39%. You understand the trend here.’

In response to some of Wyden’s concerns, Greer said Vietnam has already negotiated a lower tariff on U.S. cherries and apples exported from Oregon and the Northwest.

‘This is exactly the right direction that we want to go in,’ Greer said.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., struck a more middling tone on tariffs, saying that he has never been a ‘great fan of free trade,’ and cited his work ending NAFTA and opposing normalized relations with China.

He also cited the outsourcing of manufacturing to Mexico, saying it killed hundreds of thousands of American jobs and has many Mexican workers ‘living in cardboard boxes.’

‘That is the type of trade policy which I detest. But I want to move to an area, to talk about the legal basis of what President Trump has done,’ he said.

Sanders said he lives 50 miles from Canada and does not see the same empirical data on illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling that Trump accused Ottawa of failing to act on – and incorporated into his tariff calculations.

On the Republican side, Chairman Michael Crapo, R-Idaho, was largely deferential to Trump and Greer, while some other Republicans voiced concerns.

Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa questioned whether Congress ‘delegated too much authority to the president’ but said he supports the president so long as his mission is to ‘turn tariffs into trade deals to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers’ versus any plot to ‘feed the U.S. Treasury through them.’

‘I made very clear throughout my public service that I’m a free and fair trader. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce. I believe that Congress delegated too much authority to the president in the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and Trade Act of 1974,’ he said.

Additionally, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., pressed Greer on who should be considered the person that will take ultimately responsibility for either praise or accountability depending on the outcome of the tariff actions.

‘Whose throat do I have to choke,’ he said, underlining that the phrase was borrowed from a management consulting mantra.

Mike Huckabee, President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel, cleared a key hurdle Tuesday after the Senate voted to end debate on his nomination.

The Senate voted 53 to 46 to advance Hucakbee’s nomination. He now awaits a final confirmation vote as Israel continues its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

While Republicans have championed Huckabee as an ardent supporter of Israel, Democrats have questioned his previous ‘extreme’ position on Palestinians.

The former Arkansas governor has previously argued it is Israel’s right to annex the West Bank and has flatly rejected the push to establish a two-state solution when it comes to the Gaza Strip. 

Huckabee has not commented on whether he still views the West Bank as Israel’s right to claim, or where he stands when it comes to Trump’s position on the Gaza Strip, which the president said he would like to turn into the ‘riviera of the Middle East’ and called for the ‘relocation’ of more than 2 million Palestinians.

During his confirmation hearing, the former governor pushed back on claims that Trump wants to take over the Gaza Strip, insisting the president has not called for the ‘forced displacement’ of Palestinians from Gaza – ‘unless it is for their safety.’

‘If confirmed, it will be my responsibility to carry out the president’s priorities, not mine,’ Huckabee said in response to questions levied at him from Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

But Huckabee’s testimony during Senate questioning is unlikely to have garnered much new support from Democrats in Congress. 

‘Huckabee’s positions are not the words of a thoughtful diplomat – they are the words of a provocateur whose views are far outside international consensus and contrary to the core bipartisan principles of American diplomacy,’ New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, a senior Jewish Democrat, said in a statement last month. ‘In one of the most volatile and violent areas in the world today, there is no need for more extremism, and certainly not from the historic ambassador’s post and behind the powerful seal of the United States.’

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Oded Lifshitz was 83 years old when he was ripped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz along with his wife, Yocheved, during Hamas’ attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Yocheved returned to Israel alive in October 2023 and has been advocating for other hostages’ release ever since. On Feb. 20, 2025, Oded returned to Israel in a coffin. His family, however, has not given up hope for those who remain in Gaza.

Daniel Lifshitz, Oded and Yocheved’s grandson, told Fox News Digital that, while the hostages who have returned have brought some light back to Kibbutz Nir Oz, nothing can really be done until all the hostages are back. As of the time of this writing, 13 hostages taken from Nir Oz are still in Gaza, and not all of them are alive.

When speaking to Fox News Digital, Daniel described his late grandfather as a ‘warrior of peace,’ explaining that while Oded served in four wars, he also fought for the rights of minorities.

Oded and Yocheved were peace activists who helped Palestinian pediatric cancer patients from Gaza cross into Israel for chemotherapy. In the eulogy she delivered at her husband’s funeral, Yocheved discussed their activism and said they ‘were hit by a terrible attack by those we helped on the other side,’ according to the Times of Israel’s translation.

Daniel explained that his grandmother felt betrayed not by Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but by Palestinian civilians who she and her husband had spent years helping. 

‘After October 7, they didn’t — we didn’t see the Palestinians going to protest outside against Hamas, going to protests for the release of the hostages, which they know if they would release all the hostage is that will be also the end of the war,’ Daniel told Fox News Digital. ‘And they need to show that they don’t want Hamas, and that is where my grandmother she feels really great betrayal because it’s for whom we try.’

Oded’s body was returned alongside those of Ariel and Kfir Bibas. The boys’ mother, Shiri Bibas, was supposed to be in the fourth coffin, but her remains were not there when the coffin arrived in Israel. Her body was returned two days later.

‘… their return together is symbolizing the failure of the international community for me because in those cars came a 9-month-old baby, the only baby held hostage in the world with an 83-year-old great-grandfather, the only great-grandfather health hostage world,’ Daniel told Fox News Digital. 

Daniel grew up with Shiri’s sister, Dana, who told Fox News Digital that she is like a sister to him.
When asked about the differences between the Biden administration and the Trump administration’s handling of the situation, Daniel told Fox News Digital that Trump’s team is ‘more creative.’

‘If one thing doesn’t work, they don’t continue. They try to bring another solution,’ Daniel told Fox News Digital.

In the face of tragedy, the Lifshitz family has refused to give up hope that the remaining hostages, alive and dead, will one day return home to Israel. Daniel also hopes his grandmother will be able to get some rest once she knows the hostages are home.