I wouldn't want industry leaders to decide laws, that's what democracy is for. It's normal that they can voice their points of view, and it's normal for a government to decide otherwise for good reasons.

Having said that, these are not normal times of course. Normally a government would have its own subject matter experts. However with Trump as a self-proclaimed expert on everything this isn't really working.

In this particular case his point 'China would use the time to catch up' isn't really a bad one because that is exactly what would happen. I'm just not really sure that that would be such a bad thing. Right now China is making a lot of open models that are good for everyone, while American models are mostly closed for rent-seeking purposes. Also, I don't see science as a race. But more as a collaboration.

Note: I'm not a Trump fan at all, just to make that clear. But I wouldn't dismiss a point just because he made it. And I'm not a fan of the Big-AI leaders either to be honest.