PARIS (AP) — JD Vance stepped onto the world stage this week for the first time as U.S. vice president, using a high-stakes AI summit in Paris and a security conference in Munich to amplify Donald Trump’s aggressive new approach to diplomacy.

The 40-year-old vice president, who was just 18 months into his tenure as a senator before joining Trump’s ticket, is expected, while in Paris, to push back on European efforts to tighten AI oversight while advocating for a more open, innovation-driven approach.

The AI summit has drawn world leaders, top tech executives, and policymakers to discuss artificial intelligence’s impact on global security, economics, and governance. High-profile attendees include Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, signaling Beijing’s deep interest in shaping global AI standards.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday the Paris AI summit is “a wakeup call” for a European strategy to get competitive in a tech world now dominated by the U.S. and China.

Macron also called on “simplifying” rules in France and the European Union to allow AI advances, citing sectors like healthcare, mobility, energy, and “resynchronize with the rest of the world.”

“We are most of the time too slow,” he said.

The summit underscores a three-way race for AI supremacy: Europe striving to regulate and invest, China expanding access through state-backed tech giants, and the U.S. under Trump prioritizing a hands-off approach.

Vance’s debut abroad

Vance has signaled he will use the Paris summit as a venue for candid discussions with world leaders on AI and geopolitics.

“I think there’s a lot that some of the leaders who are present at the AI summit could do to, frankly — bring the Russia-Ukraine conflict to a close, help us diplomatically there — and so we’re going to be focused on those meetings in France,” Vance told Breitbart News.

Vance is expected to meet separately Tuesday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, according to a person familiar with planning who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

On Tuesday, Vance will have a working lunch with Macron to discuss Ukraine and the Middle East. Vance, like Trump, has questioned U.S. spending on Ukraine and the broader approach to isolating Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump promised to end the fighting within six months of taking office.

Vance’s diplomatic tour continues in Germany, where he will attend the Munich Security Conference and press European allies to increase their commitments to NATO and Ukraine and may meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Vance also addressed what he called an “evil trend” in Europe toward censorship.

“We want people to be able to speak their minds, and we believe that free and open debate is actually a good thing. Unfortunately, a lot of our European friends have gone the wrong direction there,” he said.

European leaders have been monitoring Trump’s recent statements on threats to impose tariffs on the European Union, take control of Greenland and his suggestion that Palestinians clear out of Gaza once the fighting in the Israel-Hamas conflict ends — an idea flatly rejected by Arab allies.

Fostering AI advances

The summit, which gathers major players such as Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, “is the first time we’ll have had such a broad international discussion in one place on the future of AI,” said Linda Griffin, vice president of public policy at Mozilla. “I see it as a norm-setting moment.”

A global public-private partnership named “Current AI” will be launched to support large-scale initiatives that serve the general interest.

Nick Reiners, senior geotechnology analyst at Eurasia Group, noted an opportunity to shape AI governance by “moving away from this concentration of power amongst a handful of private actors and building this public interest AI instead.”

However, it remains unclear if the United States will support such initiatives.

“There’s a lot of complicated questions to resolve” around issues like the ability to control AI systems, Nobel Prize winner Demis Hassabis, founder of Google’s DeepMind research lab, said. “But also I think even more complicated are maybe the geopolitical questions about things like regulation.