Bank of England Governor Warns AI Threats Need Global Teamwork, Not Just US Action
Andrew Bailey says no single country can handle the risks of powerful AI models alone, days after the Trump administration blocked foreigners from accessing one of the most advanced AI tools on the market.
Key points
- Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey called for international cooperation to manage AI risks, in comments reported by The Guardian AI.
- Weeks before Bailey spoke, US President Donald Trump temporarily banned non-US users from accessing Claude Mythos, a powerful AI model built by Anthropic.
- Bailey warned directly that the United States would not be able to meet its AI ambitions without working with other countries.
- The intervention is one of the most senior statements on AI policy from a major central bank governor.
Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, has delivered a pointed warning to Washington. No country, he said, including the United States, can manage the dangers of modern AI on its own.
The timing isn't incidental. His comments follow President Donald Trump's decision to temporarily bar foreigners from using Claude Mythos, a capable AI model made by Anthropic. That move read to many observers as a signal that Washington treats advanced AI as a national asset to guard rather than share.
Bailey pushed back on that logic directly.
His argument is simple: AI systems cross borders the moment someone opens a browser. The threats they create don't stop at customs. A purely national response leaves gaps that bad actors will find fast.
What does this mean for ordinary people?
For most people, a central bank governor's speech sounds remote. It isn't. If AI-driven financial fraud scales faster than regulators can respond, ordinary bank customers absorb the losses. International rules, agreed between governments, are the main tool that prevents that.
Bailey's position echoes what European regulators have argued for months. The EU's AI Act sorts AI systems by risk level and sets mandatory rules accordingly. Washington has so far preferred voluntary industry commitments. That gap is precisely what Bailey appears worried about, and it's widened since the Claude Mythos ban.
On 13 July 2026, we reported that the Bank of England gained direct powers over Amazon and Google cloud services, underlining how seriously the institution now takes technology risk in finance. Bailey's call for global AI coordination sits in that same frame.
For its part, the Trump administration has framed AI leadership as a matter of national competitiveness. Sharing oversight frameworks with international partners doesn't sit easily with that framing.
Bailey's statement adds serious institutional weight to the case for a coordinated global approach. The harder question is whether finance ministries and trade negotiators pick it up. A central bank governor can set terms; he can't set the agenda in a White House that sees AI as a race to win rather than a risk to manage together.
