🔗 Share this article

Can the EU ever confront Donald Trump and US big tech? The current lack of response goes beyond a legal or financial failure: it constitutes a moral failure. This inaction calls into question the very foundation of Europe's political sovereignty. The central issue is not only the fate of firms such as Google or Meta, but the principle that the European Union has the authority to regulate its own online environment according to its own rules.

How We Got Here

To begin, consider the events leading here. During the summer, the EU executive agreed to a one-sided deal with Trump that established a permanent 15% tariff on EU exports to the US. Europe gained no concessions in return. The embarrassment was compounded because the EU also consented to provide well over $1tn to the US through investments and acquisitions of energy and military materiel. This arrangement revealed the fragility of the EU's reliance on the US.

Soon after, Trump threatened crushing additional taxes if Europe enforced its regulations against US tech firms on its own territory.

The Gap Between Rhetoric and Action

For decades EU officials has asserted that its market of 450 million rich people gives it significant sway in international commerce. But in the month and a half since Trump's threat, Europe has taken minimal action. No retaliatory measure has been taken. No activation of the new anti-coercion instrument, the often described “trade bazooka” that Brussels once vowed would be its primary shield against foreign pressure.

By contrast, we have diplomatic language and a penalty on Google of under 1% of its annual revenue for longstanding anticompetitive behaviour, already proven in US courts, that allowed it to “abuse” its dominant position in Europe's advertising market.

American Strategy

The US, under the current administration, has signaled its goals: it no longer seeks to support European democracy. It seeks to weaken it. A recent essay published on the US Department of State's platform, composed in paranoid, bombastic rhetoric reminiscent of Hungarian leadership, accused Europe of “systematic efforts against Western civilization itself”. It condemned alleged limitations on political groups across the EU, from the AfD in Germany to PiS in Poland.

Available Tools for Response

What is to be done? Europe's anti-coercion instrument works by calculating the degree of the coercion and applying retaliatory measures. If EU member states agree, the EU executive could remove US goods and services out of Europe's market, or impose tariffs on them. It can strip their patents and copyrights, block their investments and demand compensation as a requirement of readmittance to EU economic space.

The tool is not only financial response; it is a declaration of political will. It was created to signal that Europe would always resist external pressure. But now, when it is needed most, it remains inactive. It is not the powerful weapon promised. It is a symbolic object.

Political Divisions

In the period preceding the EU-US trade deal, several EU states used strong language in public, but failed to push for the mechanism to be activated. Some nations, including Ireland and Italy, openly advocated more conciliatory approach.

A softer line is the worst option that Europe needs. It must implement its regulations, even when they are inconvenient. In addition to the anti-coercion instrument, the EU should shut down social media “recommended”-style systems, that recommend material the user has not asked for, on EU territory until they are demonstrated to be secure for democratic societies.

Broader Digital Strategy

Citizens – not the automated systems of international billionaires serving external agendas – should have the autonomy to decide for themselves about what they view and distribute online.

Trump is pressuring the EU to weaken its online regulations. But now more than ever, the EU should hold large US tech firms responsible for distorting competition, surveillance practices, and targeting minors. EU authorities must hold Ireland responsible for not implementing Europe's online regulations on American companies.

Enforcement is insufficient, however. Europe must progressively replace all foreign “big tech” platforms and cloud services over the next decade with European solutions.

Risks of Delay

The real danger of the current situation is that if the EU does not take immediate action, it will never act again. The more delay occurs, the more profound the decline of its confidence in itself. The increasing acceptance that resistance is futile. The greater the tendency that its laws are unenforceable, its institutions lacking autonomy, its political system not self-determined.

When that occurs, the path to authoritarianism becomes inevitable, through automated influence on social media and the acceptance of lies. If the EU continues to cower, it will be pulled toward that same decline. The EU must take immediate steps, not just to push back against US pressure, but to create space for itself to exist as a free and autonomous power.

Global Implications

And in doing so, it must plant a flag that the rest of the world can see. In Canada, South Korea and Japan, democratic nations are observing. They are questioning if the EU, the last bastion of international cooperation, will stand against external influence or surrender to it.

They are inquiring whether representative governments can endure when the leading democratic nation in the world abandons them. They also see the model of Lula in Brazil, who confronted US pressure and demonstrated that the approach to deal with a aggressor is to hit hard.

But if Europe delays, if it continues to release polite statements, to impose symbolic penalties, to anticipate a improved situation, it will have already lost.