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EU digital laws By PeanutsChoice | CitizenOfEurope.com | June 2025
Donald Trump is now several months into his second term—and with that comes a familiar tension: transatlantic friction. But this time, the pressure point isn’t steel or autos. It’s the internet.
More specifically, two EU laws—the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA)—have become the focus of a new and potentially explosive trade rift. Brussels calls them safeguards. Washington, under Trump, sees them as something else: an attack on American tech giants.
Digital Sovereignty or Economic Hostility?
To European lawmakers, the DSA and DMA are essential. They’re meant to protect consumers, promote transparency, and limit abuses of digital dominance. But in Washington, many now argue the laws unfairly burden U.S. companies—Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and the like.
Almost all of the EU’s designated “gatekeepers” under the DMA are American firms. That’s… not a coincidence, say critics. It’s a pattern.
Back when I was covering the DST flare-up in 2020, you could almost feel the tension shift in trade halls once Big Tech entered the equation. That tension’s still here—just dressed differently.
Retaliation—Trump Style
This wouldn’t be the first time Trump’s White House has seen an EU regulation and responded with tariffs. Back in 2020, he slapped retaliatory duties on France for its Digital Services Tax, and warned others to back down. And now, with a February 2025 policy memo calling out foreign digital laws as “discriminatory,” we may see that playbook again.
Sources close to the U.S. Trade Representative have already suggested that retaliatory tariffs—on digital services, data, maybe even cars—are, uh, “under review.”
Free Speech Framing—But Political
Some Republicans are pushing a narrative that the DSA goes too far—that it censors. That it restricts political content under the banner of disinformation control. While those critiques make headlines, the law itself doesn’t ban opinions—it regulates illegal content, algorithmic risks, and opaque moderation practices.
As EU Commissioner Thierry Breton put it recently: “This law protects speech by making systems accountable, not by silencing voices.”
Final Word
This isn’t just policy—it’s positioning. Europe wants to set the global standard for tech accountability. Trump wants to protect U.S. companies and punish anything that smells like a trade offense.
The result? A digital conflict that could become just as messy as any tariff war—only this one’s about who gets to write the rules of the internet.
🧭 Sources
- European Commission, Digital Services Act enforcement timeline: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services-act
- European Commission, Digital Markets Act gatekeeper list & compliance date: https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu
- U.S. Trade Representative, Section 301 Investigations (DST): https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/fact-sheets/2020/july
- Federal Register, Memo on Foreign Regulatory Penalties, February 21, 2025: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/02/21
- Politico EU (indirect reference), coverage on US-EU tech conflict, 2025
- Public statements from Thierry Breton, Commissioner for Internal Market: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2019-2024/breton_en
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