Today, the US House Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled ‘Europe’s Threat to American Free Speech and Innovation’.
This appears to be the Trump administration’s latest attempt to oppose EU regulations aimed at protecting European citizens from emerging technologies, in particular the AI Act, the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Already last summer, on 21 August, Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), sent a letter to big tech companies urging them to ignore any European regulations that could impact US freedom of speech: “Foreign governments pose an emerging and ongoing threat to the free exchange of ideas,” he said, noting that “in particular, there have been numerous recent attempts by foreign governments to pressure your companies to censor content or reduce security for users of your services. Examples of such efforts include the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which incentivises technology companies to censor speech, including speech outside Europe; the UK’s Online Safety Act, which requires online platforms to ‘protect’ their users from harm by identifying and removing ‘illegal content’; and requests made by the UK government under the Investigatory Powers Act for companies to weaken their encryption measures to allow UK law enforcement agencies to access data stored by users.”
Subsequently, on 26 August, US President Donald Trump himself came down hard on his social network Truth Social: ‘As President of the United States, I will stand up to nations that attack our amazing American tech companies,’ he wrote, explicitly referring to the DSA and DMA: “I am warning all nations with digital taxes, legislation, rules and regulations that, if these discriminatory measures are not withdrawn, as President of the United States, I will impose substantial additional taxes on these nations’ exports to the US and restrict exports of our protected technology and chips to them.”
It seems that Trump, having lost the game at home, now wants to regain Silicon Valley’s credibility by threatening tariffs abroad. In fact, as we already reported here, last July his administration lost the battle over the AI moratorium sought by big tech companies, with the aim of establishing a ten-year US AI regulatory freeze. The moratorium was not included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Trump administration’s budget reform, which was thus approved by the Senate. The measure did not pass thanks to an amendment by Tennessee Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn. In the same month, the Senate approved the Raise Act, a New York state measure to prevent the most advanced AI models, such as those developed by big tech, from contributing to disastrous scenarios that could cause over 100 deaths or damage exceeding one billion dollars.
Among those invited to today’s hearing are two figures who have been much discussed lately and are prominent on the global stage: Nigel Farage, a far-right politician who has a good chance of becoming the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Thierry Breton, former European Commissioner for the Internal Market, who resigned two summers ago, coincidentally after warning Elon Musk in a letter to comply with the DSA.
Since the DMA and DSA came into force, the EU executive has launched several investigations into US companies, including Google, Meta and Apple. None of the DSA-based investigations have been concluded yet, while some of the DMA investigations have: Apple was fined €500 million and Meta €200 million (the Google investigation is still ongoing).
Henna Virkkunen, European Commissioner for Technology, who was not formally invited, stated in a letter on Monday that the DSA is “sovereign EU legislation” and applies to all companies, regardless of their location. She also reiterated that the DSA “fully respects and supports fundamental rights, including freedom of expression,” adding that some concerns, such as the protection of minors and consumers online, are also shared “across the Atlantic.” (photo by Jonathan Ardila on Unsplash)
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