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Can the EU ever stand up to Donald Trump and US big tech? Present passivity goes beyond a regulatory or financial failure: it constitutes a ethical collapse. This situation throws into question the bedrock of Europe's political sovereignty. What is at stake is not merely the future of companies like Google or Meta, but the fundamental idea that Europe has the right to govern its own digital space according to its own regulations.

The Path to This Point

First, let us recount how we got here. In late July, the EU executive agreed to a humiliating deal with Trump that locked in a ongoing 15% tariff on EU exports to the US. Europe received nothing in return. The indignity was all the greater because the EU also agreed to provide more than $1tn to the US through investments and purchases of energy and defense equipment. This arrangement revealed the fragility of the EU's dependence on the US.

Soon after, Trump threatened severe new tariffs if Europe implemented its regulations against US tech firms on its own soil.

The Gap Between Rhetoric and Action

Over many years Brussels has asserted that its economic zone of 450 million rich people gives it unanswerable leverage in international commerce. But in the six weeks since the US warning, Europe has done little. No retaliatory measure has been implemented. No invocation of the recently created trade defense tool, the often described “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 under 1% of its annual revenue 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 signaled its goals: it no longer seeks to support European democracy. It aims to weaken it. A recent essay released on the US State Department website, composed in alarmist, inflammatory language reminiscent of Hungarian leadership, accused the EU of “an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself”. It criticized supposed restrictions on political groups across the EU, from German political movements to PiS in Poland.

Available Tools for Response

What is to be done? The EU's anti-coercion instrument functions through assessing the extent of the pressure and imposing retaliatory measures. If EU member states agree, the EU executive could remove US goods and services out of Europe's market, or apply taxes on them. It can strip their intellectual property rights, block their financial activities and require reparations as a condition of readmittance to EU economic space.

The instrument is not merely economic retaliation; it is a statement of political will. It was created to demonstrate that the EU would never tolerate external pressure. But now, when it is most crucial, it remains inactive. It is not a bazooka. It is a paperweight.

Internal Disagreements

In the months leading to the transatlantic agreement, many European governments used strong language in official statements, but failed to push for the mechanism to be activated. Some nations, such as Ireland and Italy, openly advocated more conciliatory approach.

Compromise is the last thing that the EU needs. It must enforce its regulations, even when they are inconvenient. In addition to the trade tool, the EU should shut down social media “for you”-style algorithms, that recommend content the user has not asked for, on European soil until they are demonstrated to be secure for democracy.

Comprehensive Approach

Citizens – not the algorithms of international billionaires beholden to external agendas – should have the freedom to make independent choices about what they see and share online.

The US administration is pressuring the EU to water down its online regulations. But now more than ever, Europe should make American technology companies responsible for anti-competitive market rigging, snooping on Europeans, and targeting minors. Brussels must hold Ireland responsible for failing to enforce Europe's digital rules on American companies.

Enforcement is insufficient, however. The EU must gradually substitute all foreign “major technology” services and cloud services over the next decade with European solutions.

Risks of Delay

The real danger of the current situation is that if Europe does not act now, it will become permanently passive. The longer it waits, the more profound the erosion of its self-belief in itself. The increasing acceptance that resistance is futile. The greater the tendency that its laws are not binding, its institutions lacking autonomy, its political system not self-determined.

When that happens, the path to undemocratic rule becomes unavoidable, through automated influence on social media and the acceptance of misinformation. If Europe continues to cower, it will be pulled toward that same decline. The EU must act now, not just to push back against Trump, but to establish conditions for itself to function as a free and autonomous power.

Global Implications

And in taking action, it must plant a flag that the international community can see. In Canada, South Korea and Japan, democracies are observing. They are wondering if the EU, the remaining stronghold of international cooperation, will resist foreign pressure or surrender to it.

They are inquiring whether representative governments can survive when the leading democratic nation in the world abandons them. They also see the example of Lula in Brazil, who faced down Trump and showed that the approach to deal with a bully is to hit hard.

But if the EU hesitates, if it continues to release polite statements, to impose symbolic penalties, to hope for a better future, it will have already lost.