🔗 Share this article

Will Brussels ever resist Donald Trump and American tech giants? The current lack of response goes beyond a legal or economic failure: it constitutes a ethical failure. This inaction throws into question the very foundation of Europe's political sovereignty. The central issue is not merely the future of companies like Google or Meta, but the principle that Europe has the authority to regulate its own digital space according to its own regulations.

Background Context

To begin, consider the events leading here. During the summer, the European Commission agreed to a one-sided agreement with the US that locked in a permanent 15% tax on European goods to the US. The EU gained no concessions in return. The indignity was all the greater because the EU also agreed to direct well over $1tn to the US through financial commitments and purchases of resources and defense equipment. This arrangement exposed the vulnerability of the EU's reliance on the US.

Less than a month later, the US administration warned of crushing additional taxes if Europe implemented its laws against American companies on its own soil.

Europe's Claim vs. Reality

For decades Brussels has claimed that its market of 450 million rich people gives it significant sway in international commerce. But in the six weeks since the US warning, Europe has taken minimal action. Not a single retaliatory measure has been implemented. No invocation of the recently created anti-coercion instrument, the so-called “trade bazooka” that Brussels once vowed would be its primary shield against foreign pressure.

Instead, we have polite statements and a penalty on Google of less than 1% of its yearly income for longstanding anticompetitive behaviour, already proven in American legal proceedings, that allowed it to “exploit” its market leadership in the EU's advertising market.

American Strategy

The US, under the current administration, has signaled its goals: it does not aim to support European democracy. It seeks to weaken it. A recent essay published on the US State Department platform, written in alarmist, inflammatory language reminiscent of Viktor Orbán's speeches, accused Europe of “systematic efforts against Western civilization itself”. It criticized alleged limitations on authoritarian parties across the EU, from German political movements to Polish organizations.

Available Tools for Response

How should Europe respond? The EU's trade defense mechanism functions through assessing the degree of the pressure and applying retaliatory measures. Provided most European governments agree, the European Commission could remove US products out of the EU market, or apply taxes on them. It can strip their intellectual property rights, prevent their investments and demand reparations as a condition of readmittance to Europe's market.

The tool is not merely financial response; it is a declaration of political will. It was designed to signal that Europe would always resist external pressure. But now, when it is needed most, it lies unused. It is not a bazooka. It is a symbolic object.

Internal Disagreements

In the period preceding the EU-US trade deal, several EU states talked tough in public, but failed to push for the mechanism to be activated. Others, such as Ireland and Italy, openly advocated a softer European line.

Compromise is the worst option that Europe needs. It must implement its laws, even when they are inconvenient. Along with the trade tool, Europe should shut down social media “recommended”-style algorithms, that recommend material the user has not requested, on EU territory until they are proven safe for democracy.

Broader Digital Strategy

The public – not the automated systems of international billionaires serving foreign interests – should have the autonomy to decide for themselves about what they view and share online.

Trump is pressuring the EU to weaken its online regulations. But now especially important, Europe should hold American technology companies accountable for anti-competitive market rigging, surveillance practices, and targeting minors. EU authorities must hold certain member states responsible for not implementing Europe's online regulations on US firms.

Enforcement is insufficient, however. Europe must gradually substitute all foreign “major technology” services and cloud services over the next decade with homegrown alternatives.

Risks of Delay

The real danger of this moment is that if the EU does not take immediate action, it will become permanently passive. The more delay occurs, the more profound the erosion of its self-belief in itself. The increasing acceptance that opposition is pointless. The more it will accept that its laws are unenforceable, its governmental bodies not sovereign, its democracy not self-determined.

When that happens, the route to undemocratic rule becomes inevitable, through automated influence on social media and the normalisation of lies. If Europe continues to remain passive, it will be pulled toward that same abyss. The EU must take immediate steps, not only to push back against Trump, but to create space for itself to exist as a free and sovereign entity.

International Perspective

And in doing so, it must plant a flag that the rest of the world can see. In North America, South Korea and East Asia, democracies are observing. They are questioning if the EU, the last bastion of liberal multilateralism, will stand against external influence or surrender to it.

They are asking whether representative governments can survive when the leading democratic nation in the world turns its back on them. They also see the model of Brazilian leadership, who confronted Trump and demonstrated that the approach to address a aggressor is to respond firmly.

But if Europe delays, if it continues to release polite statements, to impose token fines, to anticipate a better future, it will have already lost.