Trump’s digital threats: a test of EU sovereignty and unity

President Trump has an infinite capacity to grab the headlines. Late on Monday 26 August the American president took to Truth Social to announce that he intended to “stand up to countries that attack our incredible American tech companies”.

Warning “the world” against treating US companies as a “piggy bank” or a “doormat”, the US President in his own handwriting “put all countries with Digital Taxes, Legislation, Rules, or Regulations, on notice that unless these discriminatory actions are removed, I, as President of the United States, will impose substantial additional Tariffs on that Country’s Exports to the USA and institute Export restrictions on our Highly Protected Technology and Chips.”

While not specifically naming any country the President had the EU in his sights.

Coming so close after the US – EU trade deal struck between the US President and the President of the EU Commission struck at the end of July the new assault from Washington took many by surprise. It should not have.

Influenced in no small degree by the extraordinary efforts of the leaders in Silicon Valley to endear themselves to ‘Trump 47’ – as strikingly demonstrated by the line-up of US “digital royalty’ attending President Trump’s inauguration as the 47^th President of the US on 20 January- EU regulation of the digital sector has been in the crosshairs of the Trump II administration from the ‘get go’.

The Pauline conversion of US digital leaders to Mr Trump– very few of whom were in his camp prior to November 2024– has paid dividends.

An early indication of the way the wind was blowing came at the Munich Security Conference on 14 February where Vice President Vance drew headlines from his intrusions into European politics, his reference to EU “commissars” suppressing “free speech” and his attack on Europe’s ‘digital censorship’

A week after the Munich speech, President Trump signed an Executive Order “Defending American Companies from Overseas Extortion and Unfair Fines and Penalties”.

The Order denounced EU “regulations governing digital services that are more burdensome and restrictive on United States companies than their own domestic companies”, a criticism aimed at the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into effect during the first Trump administration.

A second criticism in the Executive Order was on “the extraterritorial outreach” of EU law over US companies. The reference to extraterritoriality is ironic in the extreme given the US penchant for extraterritorial legislation and its decade’s long use of an assumed right to apply US legislation such as the extended US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act [FCPA] to enforce US policies and promote US corporate interests outside the borders of the United States

In addition to the GDPR, the EU’s Digital Marketing Act has attracted fire from the Trump administration and its supporters in the US Congress. In March 2025 the EU Commission found it necessary to write to the Chair of the US Congress Judiciary Committee defending the EU’s Digital Marketing Act against accusations that its antitrust rules were focused primarily on US companies.

Labelled as an attack on free speech the Digital Services Act and the requirements that it places on the major digital platform operators to ensure a safer online environment by implementing measures to combat illegal content, protect user rights, and increase transparency regarding content moderation, advertising, and recommender systems has also become a particular US target.

In early August Reuters reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had instructed US diplomats serving in EU member states to launch a ‘lobbying blitz’ against the DSA. The day before President Trump’s Truth Social post Reuters carried another report – the Trump administration was considering imposing sanctions on EU or member state officials who implement the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

Even by Trump’s standards, the idea of sanctioning public servants from an ally for performing their duties is bizarre

Lethargic response

Given the fact that President Trump and his surrogates have been consistent in their criticism of EU digital regulation and have made no secret as to the their wishes to see either an end or a radical reconfiguration of the EU rules, the Commission’s response to Trump’s Truth Social post was surprisingly mute and ad hoc.

The initial responses came from officials rather than from members of the Commission, a fact that drew some criticism.

A Commission spokesman made it clear that the EU would continue implementing its digital regulatory framework. Reminding the US that the EU digital regulations had not been included in the trade agreement concluded by President Trump and President von der Leyen in Turnberry in July the spokesman pointed out that economic regulation and the regulation the digital sector in a way that is consistent with European democratic values was a sovereign right of the EU.

The Commission’s Digital Spokesperson rebutted the claim that EU rules targeted US firms emphasising the EU law is applied without regard to ‘company nationality or ownership’ citing EU enforcement actions against non-US companies such as TikTok and Temu.

On 27 August Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné responding to reporters’ questions suggested that the EU-US trade deal would “have to be reviewed” if the President went ahead with his proposals. The following day Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera warned that the EU must be ready to ‘rethink’ its trade relationship with the US if the Trump administration presses ahead with a campaign against EU digital regulation.

Questioned on President Trump’s post at a press conference following a joint meeting of members of the French and the German cabinets on 29 August President Macron pointing out that “tax and regulation are the preserve of national parliaments and the EU Parliament” adding “we won’t let anybody else decide for us” and suggested the EU’s anti-coercion instrument being used should the need arise. Chancellor Mertz indicated that he had reminded President Trump at an earlier meeting that the EU’s regulation of the digital market was an expression of the bloc’s sovereignty.

So far, the most interesting response to Trump’s threats has come in a fiery article from the former EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton carried by the Guardian, La Figaro, La Stampa and Handelsblatt.

Breton portrays Trump’s threats as a direct challenge to EU sovereignty, a challenge that must be resisted. He poses the question as to how long the EU should tolerate US threats and “submit to those who want to impose their rules, their laws, their deadlines on us? Surrender to those who now presume to dictate our fundamental democratic and moral principles, our rules for how we live together and even how we protect our own children online?”

Noting that the EU’s Digital Services Act and Digital Marketing Act had received overwhelming support in the European Parliament Breton argues the laws could not now be ‘easily cast aside.’ He also makes the point that the regulating the digital domain is not optional, but a sovereign responsibility, essential for protecting citizens, upholding democratic values, and ensuring freedom of expression that cannot be abdicated to a ‘handful of private actors’.

Critical of the trade agreement concluded with the US, and by implication of the Commission President, Breton portrays the terms with which the EU emerged from the trade negotiations with the US as sub-optimal. He suggests that the EU capitulated in the trade talks because capitulation was perceived as preferable to uncertainty and a trade war. He argues that the EU had made concessions which undermine economic balance and stability for ‘illusory guarantees’.

While he does not provide any suggestions as to how the EU can respond to Trump’s latest onslaught Breton concludes that the time has come for the EU to stand together and commit to resisting the latest moves from the White House.

Doing that will not be easy.

A challenge and an opportunity

President Trump’s latest efforts come at a particularly challenging time for President von der Leyen and her team.

The narrow victory in the vote of no confidence in July signalled fractures in the coalition which supported the President’s second appointment and her new Commission. The Court decision in the case taken by the NYT over the President’s text message exchanges, the highly critical report from the EU Ombudsman and the report from the EU Court of Auditors on the same issue have all still to be processed. The controversy over the SAFE proposals, the use of the Article 122 TFEU to sideline the Parliament and the ongoing war in Ukraine has to be handled. The Multiannual Financial Framework proposals face rising scepticism with MEPs from across the Parliament suggesting that the proposals ‘don’t add up’ will take time to resolve. Together these issues present multiple challenges.

President Trump’s latest intervention adds another headache. It also offers an opportunity for President von der Leyen. Dealing with an external challenge which, as Thierry Breton points out, goes to the heart of EU sovereignty and defending European laws that have already been endorsed by overwhelming majorities in the European Parliament provides a cause around which Europe’s diverse political forces could rally.

EUalive’s columnist Dick Roche is a former Irish Minister of State for European Affairs. His columns can be found here.

Caption: Handshake between Donald Trump and Ursula von der Leyen, Turnberry, United Kingdom, 26 July 2025 [Europe by Satellite]