1. FOOD FIGHT HITS BRUSSELS

The debate over “ultra-processed foods” has gone global, bringing renewed attention to the relationship between international health policy and American consumers. The World Health Organization (WHO) is unveiling a new food profiling tool this week to help governments regulate “ultra-processed foods,” as POLITICO Europe reports.

The development comes as President Trump withdrew the United States from the WHO last year and has called the organization a “corrupt globalist scam.”

The potential costs of a WHO regulation like this one are significant. Looking at the United States, a University of Chicago analysis found that a federal UPF would cost $14.2 billion annually, affecting 72% of packaged foods. Economist Tomas Philipson, a former acting chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, wrote that the push is “bad news for anyone who cares about the cost of healthy eating.” He cautioned that labeling requirements affecting everyday staples like whole-wheat bread could create unintended consequences for consumers.

As policymakers in the United States and Europe consider how to approach “ultra-processed foods,” affordability should remain a central place in the conversation. If we follow the WHO’s lead, this new regulatory framework would lead to spikes in grocery prices for Americans.

2. POLAND’S TRIBUNAL CRISIS GOES CONTINENTAL AS LE PEN CALLS OUT BRUSSELS

Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal standoff is now a European political fight. President Karol Nawrocki tried to enter the Tribunal building Friday night during a deadlock over the appointment of eight new judges, and police surrounded the building as the confrontation played out live on television. The opposition has accused Donald Tusk’s government of attempting a coup. The government says it is restoring the rule of law.

France’s Marine Le Pen, the National Rally’s parliamentary leader, called the crisis a cause for “profound concern.” She wrote on X that “the contested suspension of the Tribunal’s president, and the intervention of security forces around this institution, appear to resemble a forcible takeover of a constitutional body.” She also took aim at Brussels: “The indifference of the European Union and the silence of the media in the face of the Polish crisis are raising legitimate questions: one cannot claim to defend democracy and the rule of law while remaining silent when the constitutional balance of a member state is gravely threatened.”

Brussels’ response shows the problem. The Commission’s statement said the appointment of the eight judges “falls within the constitutional powers of the Sejm.” Brussels talks about the rule of law as a principle that applies to everyone, but it applies it selectively. A Commission that wants to be seen as a neutral referee can’t keep picking winners, and Le Pen’s question about whose rules count is one Brussels still hasn’t answered.

INDUSTRY & TRADE GROUPS FIND COMMON GROUND IN DMA OPPOSITION

U.S. technology groups are petitioning the Trump administration to stay on the offensive against Brussels over its Digital Markets Act.

In comments filed with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) for the 2027 National Trade Estimate Report, leading industry groups identified the DMA as one of the primary barriers American companies face in Europe.

In its public comment, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) warned of the “significant financial and operational risks” that the DMA poses for American companies, companies whom the regulation “disproportionate[ly] impact[s].”

Adding its objections to the DMA, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) noted how foreign governments have extracted $21.7 billion (and counting) from US Tech Firms since 2018, 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.

The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) shared similar concerns, noting that the DMA “compels the forced sharing of intellectual property, including firm-specific data and technical designs, with EU competitors, effectively requiring U.S. firms to subsidize their European rivals.”

Several trade groups also urged Washington to weigh more robust tactics to combat Brussels’ regulatory agenda, including the ITIF who recommended the USTR pursue “a focused Section 301 investigation with targeted remedies.”

It will be an easy decision for a president who has already fought to prevent American companies from being taken advantage of across the pond and has signaled a willingness to take it a step further if the EU doesn’t reevaluate.

1. EUROPE’S WINTER GAS SQUEEZE

Europe’s gas storage is heading into winter at its lowest level for this time of year since records began in 2011, Euronews reports, and prices have tripled in 2026. The Dutch TTF benchmark hit €97.64 per megawatt hour this week, its highest since December 2022 and up about 234% since January. Storage was 74.6% full on Oct 24, against 82.9% a year earlier and 98.5% in 2023. Reserves have also stopped growing, and some countries have already started drawing down winter stocks before November.

Energy research firm Wood Mackenzie expects storage to be only 17% to 20% full by the end of March, and that assumes a normal winter. Winter futures trade at about €95 per megawatt hour, nearly triple last winter’s average of about €36. Euronews puts the extra cost for a typical gas-heated home at roughly €715 this winter.

The deeper problem is that Europe has stopped producing its own gas. Imports now meet 85% of EU gas demand, according to Wood Mackenzie. Without new investment in domestic fields, the firm says, the bloc will import more than 98% of its gas by 2050. Wood Mackenzie says changing that depends on permitting reform and fiscal stability, which are exactly the areas where Brussels’ climate-first agenda has made drilling harder.

After 2022, Europe promised itself it would never be caught this exposed again. Four years later, with storage at a record low and Brussels still debating whether to coordinate demand cuts, that promise looks broken. As Euronews puts it: “Europe changed its suppliers after 2022. It did not change how much it depends on them.”

2. EUROS REJECT VDL’S CANADA PITCH

Ursula von der Leyen’s grand idea of offering Canada “associate member” status in the EU didn’t survive contact with EU governments. Politico reports that Germany, Greece, France and others objected to the idea, and it has been dropped from the joint statement for the landmark EU-Canada summit in Montreal. Von der Leyen floated the offer in her State of the Union speech in September, catching some EU countries off guard, according to Politico.

An earlier draft of the statement committed both sides to define “the concept of Associate Member” by the 2027 EU-Canada Summit, in the name of “prosperity, economic security and strategic autonomy.” That’s gone. The new draft promises only to define “an ever closer association of Canada to the EU, short of full membership itself.” Even the “closer association” wording shifts partway through the text, from “even closer” to “ever closer.”

Even Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney shrugged it off: “it doesn’t matter about specific names or nomenclature.” It’s another case of von der Leyen getting out ahead of the capitals she’s supposed to speak for, and then having to walk it back.

TRUMP ADMIN TIES TARIFF CUTS TO DMA CHANGES

The United States stepped up its pressure on Brussels this past week, warning the EU that it will not lower tariffs on European steel and other goods until the Commission softens enforcement of the Digital markets Act (DMA).

The Trump Administration’s notice, which the Commission passed along to EU capitals at a recent meeting, follows a recent escalation of regulatory aggression by the EU, which handed down a record-breaking $1 billion fine to Google just a few months ago.

President Trump’s decision to press the Commission is not only timely but also fully warranted, given that Brussels is poised to expand its regulatory assault on American tech companies and has provided no indication it plans to slow down.

For one, the EU is preparing to add AWS to the DMA’s list of gatekeepers even though the company does not meet the quantitative thresholds for designation. European officials have also grown more brazen in their rhetoric. Last month, French Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad characterized Brussels’ billion-dollar Google fine as “a new revenue stream for the European Union” that “should automatically lower the contributions of all member states.”

European media commentary further reflects this, suggesting the Commission’s best response to President Trump’s retaliation would be “more taxes” and a “dial[ing] up of investigations of US Big Tech.”

With progressives and the Trump Administration recently finding common ground through their opposition to the DMA, Brussels should not expect a shift in US policy regardless of the outcome of next week’s midterm elections.

The choice is ultimately up to Brussels: spare its steel industry by adjusting its DMA enforcement or prepare for a prolonged trade war with the world’s largest economy.

THEY FLED TO AN EU “PARADISE.” NOW THEY WANT TO COME HOME.

Europe was sold as a left-wing utopia: universal health care, easy living, a gentler life. Thousands of Americans bought it. Now WIRED reports that many are plotting their way back.

On health care, one American learned what “free” really means in Europe: “I pay huge amounts of taxes and an immigration surcharge to access the NHS services—so no, the health care is not free here.” This should be a warning signal to the “Medicare for All” and elimination of private health insurance model that the Democrat Party is pushing in the US. Democrat candidates are running on Medicare for All for midterm elections, but the recent report from WIRED proved that may be a mistake.

This is what the EU government system looks like up close. Brussels has stacked rule upon rule until even Merz and De Wever want an “emergency brake,” and the EU is now reworking its own Green Deal after piling energy and compliance costs on industry. Eurozone factory output fell 0.5% in August. Open borders and weak enforcement have strained public services and public patience, as France’s riots just showed.

Europe’s model of high taxes, heavy regulation, and government-run everything is not one to follow. America’s more open, faster-moving, pro-growth approach is why people want to come home, and the U.S. is better off for it.

2. FRANCE BURNS, AMERICA ENFORCES

Student protests over school conditions started in September. By last weekend they had turned into organized looting and arson. Rioters vandalized roughly 1,500 shops and set fire to Limoges’ 143-year-old town hall, which survived two world wars. In Marseille, they toppled a bust of Marianne. Nearly 2,400 people were arrested, and about 1,000 police officers were injured.

Macron says, “Those who looted will have to pay.” That promise comes after the damage is done. Europe’s establishment spent years letting in migrants with no real plan to integrate them. It tolerated parallel communities and treated enforcement against criminal behavior as optional.

America has taken the opposite path. Under President Trump, southern border apprehensions fell 95% in fiscal year 2026, the lowest annual total in American history, with zero Border Patrol releases for the first time ever. Violent crime fell 9.3% in 2025, the largest one-year drop since the FBI began estimating crime in 1936. The murder rate hit its lowest level since the 1950s. Secure borders and real enforcement are working.

The bottom line: When a government controls who comes in and enforces its laws once they’re here, its people are safer. When it won’t, it loses its own streets. Paris is the warning for every capital in Europe.

Europe doesn’t need apologies. It needs the Trump model: secure borders and consequences for lawbreakers.

EVEN LIBERALS SUPPORT TRUMP ON DMA PUSHBACK

The Digital Markets Act has become so plainly discriminatory against American companies that even liberal groups in the U.S. are joining ranks with President Trump to voice the same concerns his administration has stressed for years.

In a recent piece, the Chamber of Progress took issue with the EU’s Digital Omnibus. Despite being intending to “simplify Europe’s digital rulebook, reduce compliance costs and improve regulatory coherence,” the Commission’s Digital Omnibus is poised to do the exact opposite through numerous proposed amendments that would introduce additional obligations or discriminatory treatment targeting DMA-designated gatekeepers.

These include Amendment 200, which would allow public bodies to charge very large enterprises, including DMA gatekeepers, higher fees than other companies to reuse the same public sector data. Other proposed changes, such as Amendment 1168 and Amendment 1725, would create a separate GDPR regime for processors designated as gatekeepers and exclude gatekeepers from a consent exemption for audience measurement, respectively.

The Chamber of Progress’s alignment with President Trump on this issue serves as a testament to President Trump’s leadership and his well-reasoned response to Brussels’ DMA. It should also serve as a warning to the EU that its regulatory agenda has become so egregious that even bitter political rivals approaching one of the most important and divisive elections in recent memory are willing to table their differences to defend U.S. companies overseas.

With the Commission currently evaluating amendments to the EU’s Digital Omnibus, President Trump should capitalize on this shared opposition to pressure Brussels to reject each of these amendments and to use the Omnibus to achieve its original aim of “simplify[ing] Europe’s digital rulebook, reduc[ing compliance costs and improv[ing] regulatory coherence.”

EMERGENCY BRAKE ON EU’S REGULATION REGIME

For years, the European Commission has written rules faster than businesses could read them. Now some of its biggest member states want a way to stop it. In a letter to European Council President António Costa, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever ask for an “emergency brake.” It would let EU capitals halt new legislation they judge too burdensome for governments and businesses.

They also want a new “priority rule” to suspend “certain regulatory areas for a specified period” and “significantly accelerate planning and approval procedures.” The three leaders say the EU’s “common objective should be to prevent unnecessary regulatory burdens and related costs from causing permanent losses of European industrial capacity and further weakening investment and competitiveness.”

The bottom line: Brussels’ regulatory regime is pushing industry out of Europe. Europe’s industrial sector keeps lagging, and Euronews reports the letter could be a flashpoint at this week’s EU leaders’ summit.

European leaders are asking for an emergency brake on Brussels; the regulatory machine has clearly gone too far.

2. EUROPE SEEKS TO LABEL U.S. “FOREIGN INFO” THREAT

Some of the EU’s favorite disinformation researchers now want to label America a THREAT to Europe. An investigation found that EU DisinfoLab’s annual conference in Vilnius, which the EU finances, scheduled a session called “USA as a FIMI threat: acknowledge, adapt, push back.” FIMI is “foreign information manipulation and interference.” The session description asks, “How did the United States become a FIMI threat for Europe?”

The EU has sent this group about €1.1 million in research grants since 2018: €250,000 for WeVerify, €327,500 for vera.ai, €212,500 for ATHENA, and a new grant of more than €308,000 that runs to 2029. Public reports that the EU’s diplomatic service, the EEAS, quietly removed its name from the conference website but kept the money flowing.

The State Department’s response was blunt. A spokesman said, “We reject that characterization. For too long, governments have exploited the pretext of combating ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ for politically motivated reasons,” adding that the U.S. has already imposed visa restrictions on five individuals it accuses of censoring Americans, and that the policy “is global and enforceable wherever the facts warrant.”

Brussels wants Americans to believe its anti-free speech agenda is about protecting democracy. It’s hard to square that with taxpayer money going to a disinformation group that treats the U.S. government as a foreign influence operation.

FTC’S MEADOR CALLS OUT EUROPE’S REGULATE-FIRST MODEL

Speaking at the EU Competition Law Conference last week in Brussels, FTC Commissioner Mark Meador broke down the flaws in the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Meador specifically took issue with the DMA’s ex ante regulatory approach that imposes obligations upfront, often without specific evidence of harm, noting that the evidence to date has not indicated that such rules have produced greater clarity, faster relief, or remedies tied to demonstrated harm.

Meador contrasted the two frameworks, noting that, in the U.S., a company asks itself, “What am I not allowed to do?” Under the DMA, however, the question becomes, “What am I allowed to do?” When companies need permission before they act, they have far less room to experiment with new products or respond to changing consumer preferences. This dynamic also helps explain why Europe has seen such a drastic decline in innovation within its tech sector.

The FTC Commissioner also pushed back on an oft-repeated claim by supporters of the DMA that contends ex ante rules provide companies with more certainty. In fact, the opposite is true. The DMA’s obligations are so broadly framed, noted Meador, that “[c]ompanies must guess how regulators will interpret” them, redesign their products, and then wait to find out whether the Commission is satisfied. If firms guess wrong, however, they open themselves up to fines of up to 10% of worldwide annual turnover, or 20% for repeat infringements.

This ex ante regulatory approach has been especially difficult for companies developing or releasing new products that now must weigh the benefits of a launch against the prospect of substantial fines. This has pushed firms to pull new technology out of Europe rather than gamble on loosely defined rules. Apple, for example, recently announced it will not release its new “HomeView” product in Europe due to this lack of clarity, joining features like Siri AI and iPhone Mirroring that have been similarly shelved on account of the Commission’s regulations. Google has faced similar setbacks, stripping flight and hotel information from its EU search results in order to ensure compliance.

If the EU truly hopes to level the playing field and spur innovation in its underperforming tech sector, it must reevaluate its regulatory approach and consider adopting one that, as Meador points out, “has served competition and consumers well for more than a century.”

GREEN IN THEORY, DIESEL IN PRACTICE

The European Commission spent years lecturing the world about phasing out fossil fuels. Now it’s pleading with the Trump administration to keep American diesel flowing. Brussels has launched a diplomatic push to head off a reported 90-day U.S. diesel export ban. Commission spokesperson Olof Gill warned that “any disruption would risk negatively impacting both sides,” and said “high-level contacts” with Washington are ongoing.

The reason for the panic is simple: the EU now gets more than half of its diesel from America. Imports have surged to replace supply lost to the Middle East conflict and strikes on Russian refineries. An industry source told Politico that, given “the precarious situation that Europe currently finds itself in,” any further restrictions “could quickly become very serious.”

Brussels still won’t admit what this means for its climate agenda. When asked whether the EU would rethink its $750 billion pledge to buy U.S. energy by 2028, spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen called the trade “mutually beneficial.” In the same answer, she repeated the bloc’s long-term commitment to quitting fossil fuels entirely.

America is now the world’s largest diesel exporter and is setting new records this year. Europe’s green rhetoric runs on American energy, and when that supply is at risk, Brussels comes asking Washington for help.

2. VDL’S €2 TRILLION WISH LIST

Ursula von der Leyen is fighting to protect the next EU budget, and the main pushback is coming from her own country. Ahead of the October 15 leaders’ summit, the Commission president warned MEPs in Strasbourg against “large cuts” to her proposed seven-year budget of nearly €2 trillion. She said cuts would “risk cutting deep into critical priorities that we all together have agreed on.”

The Commission’s plan is worth 1.26 percent of the bloc’s gross national income, which is more than the last budget. The “frugal” countries paying the bills want deep cuts, and Germany is leading them. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who is from von der Leyen’s own CDU party, put it bluntly: “Having no new financial framework is by far the most financially advantageous solution for Germany.”

On the other side, 17 Southern and Eastern European countries signed a joint letter demanding that farm subsidies and cohesion funds be protected. Parliament’s lead budget negotiator, Siegfried Muresan, warned the Irish presidency against “unjustified cuts.” He admitted that member states don’t want to raise their national contributions.

This is the familiar pattern in Brussels: the budget gets bigger, the bill gets passed to member states, and anyone who objects is accused of making Europe “weaker.” When even Berlin argues that no budget beats this one, the problem lies with the Commission, not the critics.

DMA FLOPS ON GLOBAL STAGE

For years, the European Commission promised that the Digital Markets Act would become the global standard for regulating tech. Yet, a new report shows very few governments have followed its lead.

Conducted by the Computer & Communications Industry Association this week, the report tracked 83 developments in 16 jurisdictions across the globe. Of the 14 jurisdictions outside the EU that considered replicating the DMA, 13 have either rejected the framework or implemented versions so narrowed they bear little resemblance to Brussels’ approach. South Korea, for example, despite seriously entertaining a DMA-style policy, opted against such a regulation after careful consideration. The country’s Fair Trade Commission cited the costs of overregulation and concerns that the EU’s ex-ante regulatory approach, which aims to regulate companies before market harm or anti-competitive behavior happens, would stifle domestic innovation.

Countries are refusing to follow Europe’s lead because the DMA has failed to deliver any benefits for European consumers. Instead, the policy has delayed new products and services, degraded apps used by Europeans every day, and driven up costs for EU businesses. The consequences of the DMA have been so severe that one survey found that a majority of Europeans would be willing to pay a fee in order to undo the damage the policy has inflicted on their digital experience.

With the Commission’s digital regulatory policy stalling globally, there is no better time for the Trump Administration to ramp up its pressure campaign and ensure American firms aren’t condemned to pay for Europe’s failed experiment. If the world won’t follow Brussels’ model, Brussels shouldn’t be able to impose it on American firms either.

BRUSSELS IS LOSING THE AI RACE FROM THE INSIDE OUT

Axel Voss, German CDU member of the European Parliament and a card-carrying EPP ally of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is publicly torching the Commission’s handling of artificial intelligence.

“The whole working method of the European Commission is not adapted to these extremely fast-changing developments,” Voss told Politico, adding that AI Act enforcement “is not on the level where we would like to have it.”

Von der Leyen’s State of the Union address last week didn’t help calm critics either. Voss called it “not ambitious enough regarding digital developments.” The EU’s much-celebrated AI Act is barely off the ground, and its own architects are already admitting it isn’t working.

While the Trump administration moves to unleash American AI innovation, Brussels is still struggling to enforce rules it passed two years ago. The Commission built the regulatory empire. Now even its own allies are watching it crumble.

2. DELETE EVERYTHING: VDL’S DISAPPEARING ACT

The EU’s own watchdog is sounding the alarm on transparency, and the irony is hard to miss. European Ombudsman Teresa Anjinho warned this week that deleted texts, ephemeral chats, and AI-driven decision-making are creating “accountability-free zones“ inside EU institutions, making it nearly impossible for citizens to scrutinize how Brussels actually operates.

The rules governing public access to EU documents are 25 years old, built for a world of paper trails and physical archives. Anjinho says they’re no match for a governance structure that increasingly runs on disappearing messages and data flows that leave no record behind.

Despite the Ombudsman ruling that deleting President von der Leyen’s texts amounts to maladministration, Brussels confirmed it will keep doing exactly that, citing cybersecurity concerns. Anjinho pushed back, stating that “an institution cannot let a security architecture quietly decide what is a document in the first place.”

The bottom line, per Anjinho, is that European citizens shouldn’t need to file complaints or go to court to see how their government works. The current system “desperately lacks clarity,” and the longer Brussels stalls, the higher “the steadily rising price we pay for inertia.”

FRANCE SHAKES DOWN AMERICAN TECH COMPANIES TO FUND EUROPE’S €2 TRILLION BUDGET

French Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad made waves on Tuesday during a live interview when he walked through exactly what Brussels intends to do with the tens of billions it has collected from American companies. The $5.2 billion fine the EU extracted from Google, Haddad told France Info, is “a new revenue stream for the European Union” that “should automatically lower the contributions of all member states.” The minister also characterized the windfall as “good news” that will help “keep member states’ contributions under control” as Brussels works to agree on a new €2 trillion, seven-year spending plan.

Haddad’s comments, while running directly counter to the stated aim of European regulations like the DMA of fostering fair competition across digital markets, illustrate how the Commission has used the regulation since it entered into force in 2023: to extract as much wealth as possible from American innovators operating in Europe.

Since 2024, the European Commission has handed down more than $7 billion in penalties to American companies under its digital regulatory framework. Factoring in the roughly $1 billion per year in compliance costs absorbed by US firms, the total costs surpass $9 billion. For context, that figure exceeds what Europe collects in taxes from its own tech sector.

President Trump has repeatedly held that the “United States of America is not a ‘PIGGYBANK’ for Europe,” and has backed up his statements with tariff threats and a Section 301 investigation. Yet, as Haddad’s comments demonstrate, Europe has no intention of treating American companies fairly or softening their extractive regulations.

Europe should understand by now that brazen theft from US companies whose services hundreds of millions of Europeans enjoy on a daily basis will not be tolerated.

1. 13 EU NATIONS DEMAND A RECKONING WITH BRUSSELS’ RED TAPE

A broad coalition of 13 EU member states, including Germany, Italy, Poland, and Denmark, are formally demanding a “deep cleaning“ of European law, calling on the Commission to conduct a sector-by-sector review of whether existing regulations are still needed or simply imposing burdens with no added value.

The coalition explicitly warned that “EU legislation cannot be an end in itself” and called for a full “Implementation and Consolidation Year”. A freeze on new rulemaking while Brussels cleans up the mess it already made. This is a direct rebuke of the regulatory legacy Ursula von der Leyen built her second term on, including the CSRD, the CSDDD, and a cascade of ESG and climate-related mandates that have strangled European competitiveness while American businesses operated freely under a deregulatory agenda

The signatories want every major new compliance obligation preceded by a review and elimination of existing ones in the same policy area, the opposite of how Brussels has operated for a decade. They’re also demanding mandatory review clauses every five years to determine whether regulations actually achieved their stated goals, a standard that many aspects of their signature Green Deal would almost certainly fail.

Von der Leyen spent two terms building a regulatory empire that European businesses, European governments, and European voters are now collectively demanding be torn down.

2. TRUMP SEALS GREENLAND DEAL; A WIN FOR TRANSATLANTIC SECURITY

President Trump signed a landmark agreement with Denmark and Greenland on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, securing expanded U.S. military access across the strategic Arctic island, including two new major military bases. The deal allows Washington to modernize its presence at Pituffik and establish new defense areas in the north, south, and east of the island.

Critically, no non-NATO country may establish a military foothold in Greenland under the accord, a direct check on Russian and Chinese ambitions in the Arctic. Danish PM Frederiksen called it “a deal that can last forever.”

The accord also carries significant economic weight. Greenland sits atop some of the world’s most critical mineral reserves, and the agreement prioritizes Greenlandic contractors for base construction and maintenance. A deliberate move to tie the island’s economic future to Washington rather than to Brussels or Beijing.

Trump’s resolve produced a binding, open-ended security agreement that strengthens NATO’s Arctic flank, keeps adversaries out, and ensures America sets the terms of engagement in one of the world’s most strategically vital regions.

BRUSSELS’ SUMMER ASSAULT ON AMERICAN TECH

American technology companies endured a grueling summer at the hands of Brussels’ Digital Markets Act. European regulators have aggressively enforced the Digital Markets Act, handing down their trademark fines to American companies at an alarming rate, and have forced operational changes that hurt European users and weaken US competitiveness.

In July, Google was hit with a $1 billion fine, the largest in the DMA’s history. Brussels then gave the company just 60 days to overhaul its search results or face additional penalties of up to 5% of its global revenue. In response, Google recently rolled out what it described as the largest reduction in search quality in its 29-year history. Under the new rules, Europeans searching for a hotel or a flight are now routed to intermediary booking platforms like Expedia and Booking.com rather than directly to the businesses they are looking for.

Google, however, is far from the only company that has felt the wrath of the DMA this summer. Eager for more ways to extract money from American companies, the EU is also preparing to add AWS and Azure to the DMA’s list of gatekeepers, a move that will subject the companies to billions in fines, taxes, and endless compliance fees already imposed on other US firms. Apple was also forced to indefinitely delay the rollout of its new Siri for EU users, preventing tens of millions of Europeans from using the features.

President Trump has already authorized Section 301 trade investigations and placed tariff threats on the table to counter the EU’s predatory tactics. Should Brussels attempt to repeat the regulatory hostility seen this summer, the European Union is likely to face a severe trade fight that will ultimately inflict far greater damage on EU exporters than on American companies.