President Trump Is Right to Fight European Tech Overreach

By David B. McGarry

Tuesday, September 02, 2025

 

Europe has committed itself to a masochistic campaign of regulatory auto-asphyxiation. The proof is in the absence of a robust continental tech sector. Indeed, before encountering the first firm of European extraction on a list of the world’s largest technology firms, one must journey 15 spots. Of the largest 25, just two hail from within borders of the European Union (EU). Regulatory enthusiasm has eaten away the élan vital of the continent’s innovators. Even still, EU officials have yet to surfeit on their regulatory excess, their central planning and micromanagement, and their determination to arrange and rearrange the workings of technology markets just so.

 

The EU, having failed to satisfy its regulatory appetites at home, now casts a hungry eye toward American tech companies. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA) both foist on American firms byzantine compliance regimes, sapping their dynamism, endangering users’ cybersecurity, smothering consumer choice, curbing free speech online, and generally mucking up the operation of free enterprise. In the digital age, technology cannot be confined within borders — nor can its regulation. Besides the injurious effects of shackling America’s most dynamic national champions, moreover, the EU’s sheer size and might render many of its commands intercontinental, dragging American users into unwilling compliance with foreign law.

 

To halt the march of regulatory imperialism, President Donald Trump in February issued a memorandum, pledging “to defend American companies and innovators from overseas extortion” and naming the DMA and DSA in the accompanying fact sheet. “My Administration will not allow American companies and workers and American economic and national security interests to be compromised by one-sided, anti-competitive policies and practices of foreign governments,” Trump stated.

 

His administration has issued similarly strong statements. “Extraterritorial regulations that specifically target and undermine American companies, stifle innovation, and enable censorship will be recognized as barriers to trade and a direct threat to free civil society,” said then–NSC spokesman Brian Hughes. Hughes continued: “End the EU’s regulatory death spiral!”

 

Considering the Biden administration’s aid — ideological and practical — offered to the DMA, Trump’s bellicose posture was salutary.

 

Since February, these matters of digital regulation have receded from the forefront of the presidential mind; they found no resolution in the recent trade agreement made between the U.S. and the EU. These matters ought to be returned to prominence. Citing the DMA, the EU apparat moved in recent months against both Apple and Meta. Relief from the White House is badly needed.

 

Neither company has done anything that deserves the multi-hundred-billion-dollar fines assigned to them. Apple did not arrange its App Store to the satisfaction of regulators. Meta, in an attempt to comply with the data-collection regulations, offered a subscription version of its services, allowing users to pay in lieu of their data being collected and monetized. Without regard for the competitive reasoning for these firms’ policies, or the consumer benefits resulting therefrom, the EU announced draconian fines of $586.7 million and $234 million on Apple and Meta, respectively.

 

The office of the diplomat requires attention to discriminatory regulation leveled against the companies on which the future of American prosperity depends. President Trump and his administration have intermittently given their attention to European overreach, but in the froth of domestic politics and geopolitical dealmaking, that attention seems to have slipped. International negotiations are often irksome and consume more time than either party wishes, but American officials should expedite their efforts to resist the DMA and DSA.

 

The EU is a lab, demonstrating what proceeds from regulatory hubris. America is another, demonstrating what proceeds from unfettered innovation. The Old World model of state management must not be permitted to hold back the advance of the freedom-fueled dynamism of the New World.

 

The Trump administration is fond of saying, “Promises made, promises kept.” The keeping of Trump’s promise of last February will be a great day for American businesses and the American people.