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Can European leadership ever confront the US administration and US big tech? The current lack of response goes beyond a legal or financial failure: it represents a ethical failure. This situation calls into question the bedrock of Europe's democratic identity. What is at stake is not only the future of firms such as Google or Meta, but the principle that Europe has the right to govern its own online environment according to its own rules.

How We Got Here

First, consider how we got here. During the summer, the European Commission accepted a humiliating deal with the US that locked in a ongoing 15% tax on European goods to the US. The EU gained no concessions in return. The embarrassment was all the greater because the EU also consented to direct well over $1tn to the US through investments and purchases of energy and defense equipment. This arrangement revealed the vulnerability of Europe's dependence on the US.

Soon after, the US administration warned of severe new tariffs if Europe enforced its laws against American companies on its own territory.

The Gap Between Rhetoric and Action

Over many years EU officials has claimed that its market of 450 million rich people gives it unanswerable sway in trade negotiations. But in the six weeks since Trump's threat, Europe has done little. Not a single counter-action has been implemented. No activation of the recently created trade defense tool, the so-called “trade bazooka” that the EU once vowed would be its primary protection against foreign pressure.

Instead, we have diplomatic language and a penalty on Google of under 1% of its yearly income for longstanding market abuses, already proven in American legal proceedings, that enabled it to “exploit” its dominant position in the EU's digital ad space.

American Strategy

The US, under the current administration, has made its intentions clear: it does not aim to strengthen EU institutions. It seeks to undermine it. A recent essay released on the US State Department platform, written in paranoid, bombastic rhetoric similar to Hungarian leadership, charged Europe of “systematic efforts against democratic values itself”. It criticized supposed limitations on authoritarian parties across the EU, from German political movements to Polish organizations.

The Solution: Anti-Coercion Instrument

What is to be done? The EU's trade defense mechanism functions through calculating the degree of the coercion and applying counter-actions. If most European governments agree, the EU executive could kick US products out of Europe's market, or apply taxes on them. It can strip their intellectual property rights, block their investments and require compensation as a requirement of readmittance to EU economic space.

The tool is not merely financial response; it is a statement of political will. It was designed to signal that Europe would never tolerate foreign coercion. But now, when it is needed most, it remains inactive. It is not the powerful weapon promised. It is a symbolic object.

Internal Disagreements

In the months leading to the transatlantic agreement, many European governments used strong language in public, but did not advocate the mechanism to be used. Some nations, including Ireland and Italy, publicly pushed for a softer European line.

Compromise is the last thing that Europe needs. It must implement its laws, even when they are inconvenient. Along with the trade tool, the EU should shut down social media “for you”-style algorithms, that recommend content the user has not asked for, on EU territory until they are proven safe for democratic societies.

Comprehensive Approach

The public – not the automated systems of international billionaires beholden to external agendas – should have the freedom to make independent choices about what they view and distribute online.

Trump is putting Europe under pressure to weaken its digital rulebook. But now especially important, Europe should make large US tech firms accountable for distorting competition, snooping on Europeans, and preying on our children. Brussels must hold certain member states responsible for failing to enforce EU digital rules on US firms.

Regulatory action is insufficient, however. Europe must progressively replace all non-EU “big tech” services and cloud services over the next decade with homegrown alternatives.

The Danger of Inaction

The significant risk of this moment is that if Europe does not act now, it will become permanently passive. The longer it waits, the more profound the decline of its self-belief in itself. The more it will believe that resistance is futile. The greater the tendency that its regulations are not binding, its governmental bodies lacking autonomy, its political system dependent.

When that occurs, the route to undemocratic rule becomes inevitable, through automated influence on social media and the acceptance of lies. If the EU continues to cower, it will be drawn into that same decline. Europe must take immediate steps, not only to push back against Trump, but to establish conditions for itself to exist as a free and sovereign entity.

Global Implications

And in taking action, it must make a statement that the international community can see. In Canada, South Korea and Japan, democratic nations are observing. They are wondering if the EU, the remaining stronghold of liberal multilateralism, will resist foreign pressure or yield to it.

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

But if the EU delays, if it continues to release diplomatic communications, to levy token fines, to anticipate a improved situation, it will have already lost.