1. 🇪🇸 SPAIN’S SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT IN FREE FALL

A new survey delivered a devastating verdict on leftist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his government this week, finding that six in ten Spaniards now hold a negative view of the current legislative term, with nearly a third describing it as “disastrous,” “nefarious,” and “ruinous.”

The numbers come straight from a Sigma Dos poll for El Mundo published Monday, one of Spain’s major national newspapers. Only 12 percent of Spaniards view the term positively. A full 31 percent say they cannot identify a single achievement by the Sánchez government.

With elections due no later than August 2027, 41 percent of Spaniards expect them to be called early. Projections show the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) losing roughly 17 seats, potentially handing the right-wing People’s Party (PP) and Vox coalition a governing majority.

2. 🇺🇸 CONGRESS TAKES AIM AT EU’S $1T OVERREACH ON US BUSINESS

Last week, Rep. Craig Goldman (R-TX) introduced the Stop EU Overreach Act, legislation directing the U.S. Trade Representative to investigate a suite of European Union “green” regulations, including the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, and others that extend far beyond Europe’s borders and land squarely on American companies.

A Hudson Institute study estimates these rules could hit U.S. businesses with more than $1 trillion in initial compliance costs and up to $43 billion in recurring annual expenses.

The regulations force American companies to map their entire supply chains, submit to third-party audits, and meet EU sustainability standards, even when their operations are fully compliant with U.S. law.

Rep. Goldman’s bill would give the USTR tools to fight back, including tariffs and suspension of trade benefits, until the EU stops applying its rules to American businesses. The legislation already has eight House co-sponsors and support from the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.

🇪🇺 TRUMP RESPONDS TO BRUSSELS’ RECORD DMA FINE

This past Thursday, the DMA handed its largest penalty to date, fining Google over a billion dollars for alleged violations of how it displays its products in search queries.

Brussels’ record-setting fine follows a worrying trend for American companies who have felt the financial toll of EU enforcement rise dramatically over the past few years, with penalties growing from $589.8 million in 2023 and $2.3 billion in 2024 to $2.5 billion in 2025.

The fine drew the ire of President Trump, who ripped the move on Truth Social, characterizing it as an “illegal and highly discriminatory practice,” and declaring “The United States of America is not a “PIGGYBANK” for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!” President Trump also announced that his administration would immediately initiate a Section 301 investigation, a step that equips the US with tools critical to future negotiations such as tariffs and other retaliatory measures.

President Trump is right. In practice, the DMA functioned more as a “regulatory weapon aimed almost exclusively at American technology companies,” as the EU-US Forum’s Matt Mowers characterized it in a recent Newsweek op-ed, than a policy meant to level the playing field or benefit European consumers as it originally intended. For one, a survey of 5,000 Europeans earlier this year found the DMA’s regulations caused a widely felt decline in the quality of map services.

Worse yet, European consumers have increasingly had to absorb price hikes stemming from the DMA, a development the Commission notably left off their recent review of the DMA, perhaps because acknowledging them would call the entire regulatory framework into question, along with the vast financial and bureaucratic resources Brussels has poured into building it.

The European Commission has had ample time to change course and stop targeting American companies with crippling financial penalties. With President Trump’s 301 investigation announcement and the additional spectre of tariffs, now is the time to hold Brussels’ feet to the fire and demonstrate that they will be the last government that tries to fund its own tech ambitions on the backs of American companies.