By embracing Trump, Big Tech risks losing access to Europe, pushing Europe to build its own companies and platforms as Chinese companies try to expand to Europe
How Silicon Valley Got Entangled in Geopolitics—and Lost — Technology companies such as Alphabet, Meta, and OpenAI need to wake up to an unpleasant reality.
This article places Alphabet, Meta and OpenAI in that established tension, arguing that political alignment with Trump can turn market access into a geopolitical liability. Europe’s earlier effort to engage Silicon Valley directly around new EU rules underscores that access and regulatory legitimacy have become intertwined.
First-order effects
Alphabet, Meta and OpenAI face a more politically charged European operating environment, where their perceived alignment with US politics may compound existing access and legitimacy risks.
The prospect of reduced reliance on US platforms strengthens the immediate case for European alternatives, while Chinese companies seeking European expansion gain a potentially more receptive opening.
Second-order effects
US tech firms may have to devote more effort to European compliance, local partnerships and political trust-building rather than treating Europe primarily as a regulated extension of their home market.
European customers and policymakers gain greater incentive to evaluate non-US suppliers, raising the strategic value of domestic platforms and creating an opening for Chinese competitors.
Third-order effects
If market access becomes tied more closely to geopolitical alignment, Europe’s regulation of large technology firms could evolve from rule-setting into a lever for shaping the region’s technology supplier base.
The longer-term contest is likely to be over digital sovereignty: whether Europe can convert regulatory influence into durable local capacity without simply shifting dependence from US platforms to Chinese ones.
The trend: Technology-market access is becoming a geopolitical instrument, pushing regions to treat platforms and AI providers as strategic infrastructure rather than neutral commercial services.
7. There are likely to be repercussions. The past EU-US deal on data exchanges is likely to fall apart. Last time, US tech companies could act indignant, condemning US surveillance state and saying that they hadn't known everything that was happening. This time ... not so much…
4. And when tech CEOs are lined up at Trump's inauguration like so many mounted heads on a hunter's display wall, it adds geopolitical concerns to the existing worries about monopoly domination. How could/will Trump use tech platforms as an instrument against an EU that he clear…
8. Expect legal actions in EU that target big tech. Expect judges and privacy regulators that are extremely unsympathetic. And expect a public mood that identifies the current US as an adversary, and U.S. tech companies as willing auxiliaries in the war against Europe. This wo…
9. And all this in the middle of a trade war, where the obvious next move is for the EU to target the kinds of services that big tech offers. Much of this was avoidable. Big tech didn't have to bend the knee to Trump. It did, and it's going to get what's coming to it. Finis.
“Now, everyone in Europe can see the risks of relying on U.S. tech.” Read @himself.bsky.social and @abenewman.bsky.social on how Silicon Valley's efforts to cater to the Trump administration could undermine Big Tech's business model across much of the world:
'The Trump admin's evident contempt for Europe may not only endanger the business interests of EU companies. It could also spell the end of today's open Internet, as Europeans look to build alternative platforms to those of the giant US tech firms.' - @abenewman.bsky.social @him…
1/Silicon Valley thought all politics were local, but all markets are global. Big Tech played the geopolitical game and now faces a backlash in Europe and elsewhere. The result: less profits, less innovation, and less national security. w/@himself.bsky.social — www.foreignaff…
“Tech CEOs and owners, including Bezos, Schmidt's successor Sundar Pichai, and Zuckerberg were willing to be displayed at Trump's second inauguration like so many hunting trophies mounted on the wall. — Unfortunately, none of them are really getting what they hoped for.
Thesis: Silicon Valley ‘dark enlightenment ideology’ took over the US government (national conservative populism is all about ‘against’, nothing 'for'). Antithesis: There will now be a payback. “The Brewing Transatlantic Tech War” https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ ... via @ForeignA…