🔗 Share this article

Can European leadership finally resist Donald Trump and American tech giants? The current inaction is not just a legal or financial shortcoming: it constitutes a moral collapse. This situation undermines the core principles of Europe's political sovereignty. What is at stake is not only the fate of firms such as Google or Meta, but the fundamental idea that Europe has the right to govern its own online environment according to its own laws.

How We Got Here

To begin, it's important to review how we got here. During the summer, the EU executive accepted a one-sided deal with the US that locked in a ongoing 15% tariff on EU exports to the US. The EU received nothing in return. The embarrassment was compounded because the EU also agreed to direct well over $1tn to the US through investments and purchases of resources and military materiel. This arrangement revealed the fragility of Europe's reliance on the US.

Soon after, Trump warned of crushing new tariffs if Europe implemented its regulations against American companies on its own territory.

Europe's Claim vs. Reality

Over many years Brussels has asserted that its market of 450 million rich people gives it unanswerable leverage in trade negotiations. But in the six weeks since the US warning, Europe has taken minimal action. Not a single retaliatory measure has been taken. No invocation of the recently created anti-coercion instrument, the often described “trade bazooka” that Brussels once vowed would be its ultimate protection against foreign pressure.

By contrast, we have polite statements and a penalty on Google of less than 1% of its yearly income for longstanding market abuses, already proven in US courts, that enabled it to “abuse” its dominant position in the EU's digital ad space.

US Intentions

The US, under Trump's leadership, has signaled its goals: it does not aim to strengthen EU institutions. It seeks to undermine it. A recent essay released on the US State Department platform, composed in paranoid, bombastic rhetoric reminiscent of Viktor Orbán's speeches, accused the EU of “systematic efforts against Western civilization itself”. It condemned alleged limitations on political groups across the EU, from German political movements to PiS in Poland.

Available Tools for Response

How should Europe respond? The EU's anti-coercion instrument works by assessing the extent of the coercion and applying retaliatory measures. If most European governments consent, the EU executive could kick US goods and services out of Europe's market, or impose taxes on them. It can remove their intellectual property rights, block their investments and demand compensation as a requirement of readmittance to EU economic space.

The instrument is not merely financial response; it is a statement of determination. It was created to demonstrate that Europe would always resist foreign coercion. But now, when it is needed most, it remains inactive. It is not a bazooka. It is a paperweight.

Political Divisions

In the months preceding the EU-US trade deal, several EU states talked tough in public, but did not advocate the mechanism to be activated. Some nations, including Ireland and Italy, publicly pushed for more conciliatory approach.

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

Comprehensive Approach

Citizens – not the automated systems of foreign oligarchs beholden to foreign interests – should have the autonomy to decide for themselves about what they see and distribute online.

The US administration is pressuring the EU to water down its digital rulebook. But now more than ever, Europe should make American technology companies accountable for distorting competition, surveillance practices, and preying on our children. Brussels must ensure certain member states accountable for not implementing EU digital rules on US firms.

Enforcement is not enough, however. The EU must gradually substitute all non-EU “major technology” platforms and computing infrastructure over the coming years with European solutions.

Risks of Delay

The significant risk of this moment is that if Europe does not act now, it will never act again. The more delay occurs, the deeper the erosion of its confidence in itself. The more it will believe that opposition is pointless. The greater the tendency that its regulations are unenforceable, its governmental bodies not sovereign, its political system dependent.

When that occurs, the route to authoritarianism becomes inevitable, through automated influence on social media and the acceptance of lies. If Europe continues to remain passive, it will be drawn into that same decline. The EU must act now, not only to resist US pressure, but to create space for itself to function as a free and sovereign entity.

International Perspective

And in taking action, it must make a statement that the rest of the world can see. In Canada, Asia and Japan, democracies are observing. They are questioning if the EU, the remaining stronghold of international cooperation, will resist external influence or yield to it.

They are asking whether representative governments can survive when the most powerful democracy in the world turns its back on them. They also see the example of Brazilian leadership, who faced down US pressure and showed that the approach to address a aggressor is to hit hard.

But if the EU delays, if it continues to issue polite statements, to impose symbolic penalties, to hope for a improved situation, it will have already lost.