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Can Brussels ever stand up to Donald Trump and US big tech? Present passivity goes beyond a legal or financial shortcoming: it represents a moral collapse. This situation throws into question the very foundation of the EU's democratic identity. What is at stake is not only the future of firms such as Google or Meta, but the fundamental idea that Europe has the right to regulate its own online environment according to its own laws.

How We Got Here

To begin, it's important to review how we got here. In late July, the EU executive accepted a one-sided agreement with Trump that established a ongoing 15% tariff on European goods to the US. Europe gained no concessions in return. The indignity was all the greater because the commission also consented to direct more than $1tn to the US through financial commitments and acquisitions of energy and military materiel. This arrangement exposed the vulnerability of the EU's dependence on the US.

Soon after, Trump warned of crushing new tariffs if Europe implemented its regulations against American companies on its own soil.

Europe's Claim vs. Reality

For decades EU officials has asserted that its market of 450 million affluent people gives it unanswerable leverage in international commerce. But in the six weeks since Trump's threat, Europe has done little. Not a single counter-action has been taken. No invocation of the recently created trade defense tool, the so-called “trade bazooka” that the EU once promised would be its ultimate protection against foreign pressure.

Instead, we have diplomatic language and a fine on Google of less than 1% of its yearly income for longstanding anticompetitive behaviour, already proven in American legal proceedings, that allowed it to “exploit” its market leadership in Europe's digital ad space.

American Strategy

The US, under the current administration, has signaled its goals: it no longer seeks to strengthen EU institutions. It aims to undermine it. A recent essay published on the US State Department platform, written in paranoid, inflammatory language similar to Hungarian leadership, accused the EU of “systematic efforts against Western civilization itself”. It criticized supposed restrictions on political groups across the EU, from German political movements to Polish organizations.

Available Tools for Response

What is to be done? The EU's anti-coercion instrument works by calculating the degree of the coercion and imposing counter-actions. Provided EU member states consent, the European Commission could remove US goods and services out of Europe's market, or impose tariffs on them. It can strip their intellectual property rights, block their financial activities and demand reparations as a requirement of readmittance to Europe's market.

The instrument is not merely financial response; it is a declaration of political will. It was designed to signal that the EU would always resist external pressure. But now, when it is most crucial, it remains inactive. It is not the powerful weapon promised. It is a paperweight.

Political Divisions

In the period preceding the transatlantic agreement, several EU states used strong language in official statements, but failed to push for the mechanism to be used. Some nations, such as Ireland and Italy, publicly pushed for a softer European line.

Compromise is the worst option that Europe needs. It must implement its regulations, even when they are inconvenient. Along with the trade tool, Europe should shut down social media “recommended”-style systems, that recommend content the user has not requested, on European soil until they are proven safe for democratic societies.

Comprehensive Approach

Citizens – not the automated systems of international billionaires serving foreign interests – should have the freedom to decide for themselves about what they see and distribute online.

Trump is pressuring the EU to water down its online regulations. But now more than ever, the EU should make American technology companies responsible for anti-competitive market rigging, snooping on Europeans, and targeting minors. EU authorities must hold Ireland responsible for not implementing EU online regulations on American companies.

Enforcement is not enough, however. The EU must gradually substitute all non-EU “big tech” platforms and computing infrastructure over the next decade with homegrown alternatives.

Risks of Delay

The real danger of this moment is that if the EU does not take immediate action, it will become permanently passive. The longer it waits, the deeper the erosion of its self-belief in itself. The more it will believe that opposition is pointless. The greater the tendency that its regulations are not binding, its institutions lacking autonomy, its democracy not self-determined.

When that happens, the route to undemocratic rule becomes inevitable, through automated influence on social media and the acceptance of misinformation. If the EU continues to remain passive, it will be pulled toward that same decline. Europe must take immediate steps, not only to resist Trump, but to create space for itself to function as a independent and autonomous power.

International Perspective

And in doing so, it must plant a flag that the international community can see. In Canada, South Korea and East Asia, democracies are observing. They are questioning if the EU, the last bastion of international cooperation, will stand against external influence or surrender to it.

They are asking whether democratic institutions can endure when the most powerful democracy in the world turns its back on them. They also see the model of Lula in Brazil, who faced down US pressure and demonstrated that the approach to address a bully is to respond firmly.

But if the EU hesitates, if it continues to issue diplomatic communications, to levy token fines, to hope for a improved situation, it will have already lost.