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TURNBERRY, SCOTLAND \u2014 JULY 27: President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen meets with US President Donald Trump at Trump Turnberry golf club on July 27, 2025 in Turnberry, Scotland. (Photo by Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
In recent months, top Republicans in Washington have banded together with US tech industry leaders to mount an escalating pressure campaign<\/a> against the European Union\u2019s landmark platform regulations, claiming they are tantamount to foreign \u201ccensorship.\u201d<\/p>\n The broadside has spanned across trade negotiations, diplomatic overtures, and congressional investigations, and at the moment shows no signs of letting down, particularly as European regulators set their sights<\/a> on allies to US President Donald Trump, like Elon Musk.<\/p>\n The standoff pits some of the world\u2019s most powerful companies, coupled with the backing of the US government, against sweeping EU rules widely hailed as the most significant global attempt to grapple with online harms, known as the Digital Services Act (DSA).<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a rundown of tactics Washington and Silicon Valley are using to influence Brussels:<\/p>\n Trade pressure<\/p>\n Since taking office, the Trump administration has repeatedly called on European leaders to soften or drop enforcement of the DSA in their negotiations over Trump\u2019s proposed tariffs.<\/p>\n The US designated the regulations as a foreign trade barrier earlier this year in a report by the Office of the US Trade Representative<\/a>, and has pressed the position in its talks with the EU.<\/p>\n Late last month, the US and EU reached a tentative agreement on a framework<\/a> to stave off a trade war, in which most European goods would face a 15 percent import tariff.<\/p>\n While European officials initially suggested<\/a> that the DSA had been spared in the deal, calling it a \u201cred line\u201d in their negotiations, the US has challenged the claim and suggested it\u2019s still on the table as they finalize their terms.<\/p>\n Over the weekend, the Financial Times reported<\/a> that a rift between the two sides over the issue is part of what is holding up a final statement enshrining the agreement.<\/p>\n Diplomatic messaging<\/p>\n The US diplomatic corps has also entered the fray, with the State Department dispatching officials to relay reservations about the DSA and other European platform regulations to government leaders in EU member states and relevant agencies.<\/p>\n Under Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the department has decried<\/a> the Digital Services Act as a form of \u201cOrwellian\u201d censorship and alleged it is intended to stifle dissent against European leaders.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, Reuters reported<\/a> that the State Department issued a cable ordering US diplomats to \u201cregularly engag[e] with EU governments and digital services authorities to convey US concerns about the DSA and the financial costs for US companies.\u201d The \u201caction request,\u201d signed by Rubio, said the rules posed an \u201cundue” restriction on Americans\u2019 free expression.<\/p>\n Our Content delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n Join our newsletter on issues and ideas at the intersection of tech & democracy<\/p>\n Thank you!<\/p>\n You have successfully joined our subscriber list.<\/p>\n Immigration threats<\/p>\n In one of the Trump administration\u2019s most aggressive retaliatory measures over the DSA, Rubio announced in May<\/a> that the State Department would restrict visas \u201cto foreign nationals who are responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n While the policy announcement did not explicitly call out the DSA, the department stated that it would not accept demands by foreign officials that \u201cAmerican tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States.\u201d The remarks are likely to implicate those enforcing the law.<\/p>\n In a later statement to Tech Policy Press<\/a> about the policy, a State spokesperson said the agency is \u201cvery concerned about the DSA\u2019s spill-over effects that impact free speech in America.\u201d<\/p>\n Congressional scrutiny<\/p>\n On Capitol Hill, the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee has led a major offensive against the DSA, issuing subpoenas<\/a> to tech companies to gather information about European regulators\u2019 oversight efforts and issuing a report slamming the bloc\u2019s rules. Chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the panel has served as the DSA\u2019s chief antagonist in the US Congress.<\/p>\n The committee last month issued a 145-page report<\/a> that accused the EU of creating \u201ca global censorship regime\u201d that \u201cinfringes on American online speech\u201d and alleged the \u201ctarget\u201d of the efforts is conservative speech. Democrats on the panel rebuffed the purported findings, issuing a memo<\/a> on \u201cthe most misleading distortions and assertions\u201d from the GOP report, including its suggestions that the DSA targets political debate and satire and is forcing global changes.<\/p>\n EU digital chief Henna Virkkunen has pushed back on Jordan\u2019s barbs<\/a> against the DSA, disputing his suggestion that the law regulates speech and emphasizing that regulators “have no power to moderate content or to impose any specific approach to moderation\u201d in a letter. “We firmly rebut any censorship claims. The censorship allegations relative to the DSA are completely unfounded,” a European Commission spokesperson told Reuters<\/a> in August.<\/p>\n Jordan, who has spent much of the past year attacking DSA in the form of letters and public statements<\/a>, took a more direct tack this month by leading a congressional delegation<\/a> overseas to speak out against the DSA and other European platform regulations.<\/p>\n In a statement following the trip, Jordan said, “Nothing we heard in Europe eased our concerns about the Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act, or [the United Kingdom\u2019s] Online Safety Act.\u201d<\/p>\n Tech synergy<\/p>\n Major tech companies and their lobbying groups, which for years have spoken out against both the DSA and the Digital Markets Act, the bloc\u2019s watershed digital competition playbook, have cheered on Republicans as they seek to defang those regulatory efforts.<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s X, which could soon face a massive fine<\/a> under the DSA, has lauded the Judiciary\u2019s report criticizing the rules, sharing it repeatedly<\/a> on social media in recent days. Earlier this year, the company\u2019s global affairs arm said that<\/a> an enforcement action against it by the EU would represent \u201can unprecedented act of political censorship and an attack on free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n NetChoice, a tech lobbying funded by Google, Meta, X and other tech companies, has also lauded the efforts<\/a> by Jordan and the Trump administration and called on the US<\/a> to \u201cstand firm\u201d against \u201cEU digital protectionism\u201d in its trade negotiations with the bloc.<\/p>\n In April, in response to the Commission\u2019s fines against Meta<\/a> under the DMA, Joel Kaplan, a former Republican advisor and the company\u2019s head of policy, criticized<\/a> the regulation as an attempt to \u201chandicap successful American businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TURNBERRY, SCOTLAND \u2014 JULY 27: President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen meets with US President…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187],"class_list":{"0":"post-356997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115055886721839453","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}