Agencies begin to shed Anthropic contracts following Trump’s directive
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Officials from the departments of Treasury, State and Health and Human Services confirmed they would be acting to comply with the White House mandate.
Several agencies have started making moves to phase out use of Anthropic tools, following President Donald Trump’s call for federal agencies to halt operations with Anthropic products as the friction between the company and federal government escalates.
The Department of Treasury confirmed it will stop using Anthropic technology products, including the company’s large language model, Claude, as did the State and Health and Human Services departments.
“The American people deserve confidence that every tool in government serves the public interest, and under President Trump no private company will ever dictate the terms of our national security,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tweeted on Monday morning.
The dispute between Anthropic and the Trump administration began with Anthropic refusing to allow Claude to be used for Department of Defense missions involving mass surveillance of Americans or to guide autonomous weapons. In response, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic as a supply-chain risk to national security.
Last July, the Department of Defense awarded a $200 million contract to Anthropic to provide AI capabilities.
Bessent’s pledge to remove Anthropic from Treasury operations follows the General Services Administration’s commitment to align with Trump’s stance, with Administrator Edward C. Forst stating that his agency will remove Anthropic services from the GSA marketplace and from its USAi program.
Anthropic’s products will now no longer be available on the Multiple Award Schedule, a centralized acquisition platform with software services available at favorable rates for government agencies. Per Trump’s order, the government will have a six-month runway to phase out Anthropic from its workflows.
“GSA stands with the President in rejecting attempts to politicize work dedicated to America’s national security. Building resilient, secure, and scalable AI solutions demands alignment, trust, and a willingness to make hard calls,” Frost said. “We’re committed to delivering results for Americans, and working with our AI industry partners who fit the bill.”
Elsewhere in the federal landscape, the State Department confirmed to Nextgov/FCW that it will remove Anthropic services from its workflow.
“In line with the President’s direction to cancel Anthropic contracts, we are taking immediate steps to implement the directive and bring our programs into full compliance,” said Tommy Pigott, the principal deputy spokesperson at State.
State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs made an award of $18,960 in fixed-price purchase order to Anthropic in February, according to GovTribe data.
The Department of Health and Human Services also confirmed that it is beginning to phase Anthropic solutions out of its agency workflows and will no longer offer it to staff.
Emily Hilliard, the press secretary at HHS, told Nextgov/FCW that other softwares — like Anthropic competitors ChatGPT Enterprise and Google Gemini — remain available for “authorized mission-related use in accordance with Department policy and federal information security requirements.”
Industry response
While agencies have generally fallen in line with Trump’s directive to cease use of Anthropic, Hegseth on Friday appeared to escalate the ask to companies, including defense contractors, that work with the U.S. military. In a post on X, Hegseth said that “effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic."
Amazon Web Services, which has a longstanding partnership with Anthropic, did not respond to requests for comment Monday, nor did Google Cloud, Microsoft or Salesforce, all of which have relationships with the company.
The Professional Services Council, which represents several hundred tech companies and defense contractors, advised member companies in a statement to Nextgov/FCW to “work closely with their government acquisition colleagues while we closely monitor this recent designation and what successful compliance looks like within our industrial base."
"Protecting national security supply chains is essential, and how the government designates risk has broad implications across the federal contracting industry,” a PSC spokesperson said. “Designating a U.S.-based company as a potential supply chain risk requires prime contractors and subcontractors to assess reliance, scrub supply chains, attest to compliance, and coordinate closely with contracting officers. The implications also extend beyond the Department of War, as actions such as GSA removing the company from portions of the Multiple Award Schedule add another layer of compliance complexity.”
Editor’s note: GovTribe is owned by Nextgov/FCW’s parent company, GovExec.