1. 🇺🇸 TRUMP ADMIN TURNS UP THE HEAT ON EU GREEN OVERREACH

The Trump administration is hitting back against Brussels to roll back its sweeping corporate sustainability mandates. Rules that unfairly burden American businesses competing in European markets.

At the center of the standoff are two EU directives, the CSDDD and the CSRD, two pieces of extraterritorial regulations in Europe’s Green Deal agenda.

Despite committing under last year’s Turnberry trade deal to protect U.S. companies from “undue restrictions,” the EU has failed to deliver. Now Washington is making clear it will take “any actions necessary“ to defend American commerce.

U.S. Ambassador Andrew Puzder took to X, stating in part: “Now it’s time for the EU to deliver.”

Brussels is running out of room to stonewall, and the Trump administration is putting the EU on notice: roll back your burdensome green mandates or face consequences.

2. 🔌 LESS COAL, HIGHER BILLS: AN EU AFFORDABILITY CRISIS

Europe’s green energy evangelists promised that ditching coal would deliver cleaner AND cheaper electricity. But to no surprise, they were catastrophically wrong.

According to new Eurostat figures, coal’s share of EU electricity production has collapsed to just 9.2%. Its lowest level since at least 1990, down from more than a third of all EU electricity in 1990 and 30.4% in 2000. Yet despite the dramatic retreat of coal, the average EU household electricity bill rose, reaching €28.96 per 100 kWh in the second half of 2025, up from €28.79 in the first half, and still well above pre-2022 levels.

This comes after the EU’s CO2 emissions mandates have already triggered factory closures and layoffs across the continent, leaving the car manufacturing sector significantly damaged.

Taxes and levies now make up 28.9% of the average bill, up from 27.9% just six months prior. Pre-tax prices edged down slightly, but higher taxation more than wiped out those modest savings.

The pain isn’t evenly distributed… It’s concentrated where the green agenda is most aggressive. Irish households pay the most at €40.42 per 100 kWh, Germany comes in at €38.69, and Belgium at €34.99. In Germany, the offshore wind connection levy climbed to 0.816 euro cents per kWh, and the network levy more than doubled, all while Germany generates less electricity than it did in 2000.

Less coal. Higher costs. That’s the Green Deal in practice.

💳 EU LEADS IN FINES ON US TECH

This past Monday, ITIF published a damning report documenting how Foreign Governments have extracted $21.7 Billion (and counting) from U.S. tech firms, with the vast majority coming from the EU by way of its digital regulatory framework. The figure represents the highest annual total yet-recorded, and a $1B increase compared to last year’s sum.

To put the figure into perspective, the same amount of money could have otherwise been used to pay for 290,000 teacher salaries, or fund five separate Artemis IV missions, but instead helped subsidize Europe’s fledgling tech sector.

Perhaps most troubling is that the EU has shown no signs of pulling back from their heavy-handed regulatory approach. This stubbornness has been echoed by European media, who have suggested the Commission’s best response to President Trump’s expected retaliation for the EU’s latest record-breaking fines targeting U.S. tech would be “more taxes” and a “dial[ing] up of investigations of US Big Tech.”

Brussels has spent years insisting its regulatory framework is neutral, and non-discriminatory, yet the EU’s recent penalties suggest otherwise. With a Section 301 investigation now on the horizon, Brussels faces a choice: recalibrate, or brace for a prolonged trade war with the world’s largest economy.

Doubling down on the same regulatory playbook that led to this situation is not a strategy they should expect to work, nor one President Trump is likely to tolerate.