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Can the EU ever resist Donald Trump and US big tech? The current lack of response goes beyond a legal or economic failure: it represents a ethical failure. This inaction calls into question the bedrock of the EU's democratic identity. What is at stake is not only the fate of firms such as Google or Meta, but the fundamental idea that the European Union has the right to govern its own digital space according to its own rules.

The Path to This Point

First, consider the events leading here. During the summer, the European Commission accepted a one-sided deal with Trump that established a permanent 15% tariff on European goods to the US. The EU received nothing in return. The indignity was all the greater because the EU also agreed to provide more than $1tn to the US through financial commitments and acquisitions of energy and defense equipment. The deal exposed the fragility of the EU's reliance on the US.

Less than a month later, Trump warned of crushing additional taxes if Europe implemented its regulations against American companies on its own soil.

Europe's Claim vs. Reality

Over many years EU officials has asserted that its economic zone of 450 million rich people gives it significant sway in international commerce. But in the six weeks since the US warning, the EU has taken minimal action. Not a single counter-action has been implemented. No invocation of the recently created trade defense tool, the often described “trade bazooka” that Brussels once promised would be its ultimate protection against foreign pressure.

By contrast, we have diplomatic language and a fine on Google of under 1% of its annual revenue for longstanding market abuses, already proven in American legal proceedings, that allowed it to “abuse” its dominant position in the EU's advertising market.

US Intentions

The US, under Trump's leadership, has made its intentions clear: it no longer seeks to strengthen European democracy. It aims to weaken it. An official publication released on the US State Department website, composed in paranoid, inflammatory rhetoric similar to Viktor Orbán's speeches, accused Europe of “an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself”. It condemned supposed limitations on authoritarian parties across the EU, from German political movements to Polish organizations.

Available Tools for Response

What is to be done? Europe's trade defense mechanism works by assessing the degree of the coercion and imposing counter-actions. If most European governments agree, the European Commission could kick US products out of the EU market, or impose tariffs on them. It can remove their patents and copyrights, prevent their financial activities and require compensation as a requirement of re-entry to EU economic space.

The tool is not merely economic retaliation; it is a statement of determination. It was designed to signal that Europe would never tolerate foreign coercion. But now, when it is most crucial, it lies unused. It is not the powerful weapon promised. It is a symbolic object.

Internal Disagreements

In the months leading to the EU-US trade deal, several EU states talked tough in public, but failed to push for the instrument to be used. Others, including Ireland and Italy, publicly pushed for more conciliatory approach.

Compromise is the worst option that Europe needs. It must enforce its regulations, even when they are inconvenient. In addition to the anti-coercion instrument, Europe should disable social media “for you”-style algorithms, that recommend content the user has not asked for, on European soil until they are proven safe for democracy.

Comprehensive Approach

Citizens – not the algorithms of foreign oligarchs serving external agendas – should have the freedom to decide for themselves about what they view and share online.

The US administration is putting Europe under pressure to water down its online regulations. But now especially important, the EU should make American technology companies accountable for anti-competitive market rigging, snooping on Europeans, and targeting minors. EU authorities must ensure certain member states accountable for failing to enforce EU digital rules on US firms.

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

Risks of Delay

The significant risk of the current situation is that if Europe does not act now, it will become permanently passive. The longer it waits, the deeper the decline of its self-belief in itself. The more it will believe that resistance is futile. The more it will accept that its regulations are not binding, its institutions not sovereign, its democracy not self-determined.

When that occurs, the route to undemocratic rule becomes unavoidable, through automated influence on social media and the normalisation of misinformation. If the EU continues to cower, it will be pulled toward that same abyss. Europe must act now, not just to push back against Trump, but to create space for itself to function as a free and sovereign entity.

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 last bastion of liberal multilateralism, will stand against foreign pressure or surrender to it.

They are inquiring whether democratic institutions can endure when the most powerful democracy in the world abandons them. They also see the example of Lula in Brazil, who confronted US pressure and demonstrated that the approach to deal with a bully is to respond firmly.

But if Europe hesitates, if it continues to issue polite statements, to levy symbolic penalties, to anticipate a improved situation, it will have already lost.