Big tech and Donald Trump are gunning for Europe
The EU's big opportunity to show some balls
Last week, tech billionaires and the American ruling class met the inauguration of Donald Trump, and his promise to deregulate business, with such uncontainable joy that it spread all the way across the Atlantic. Europe is the new American frontier, in terms of deregulation. But this threat presents an opportunity to the EU—to justify its existence by proving its worth to Europeans.
Because the European Union is fundamentally kind of hard to justify. It is an idea, not a set of cohesive cultural values, or even set borders (they change all the time, see: Brexit). As a governing body, it is principally a massive set of regulations, also constantly changing, which are meant to bring its (currently) twenty seven countries into legal and regulatory parity with each other.
As much as this parity makes life for Europeans easier, it can also seriously piss them off. In the Netherlands, parties on the far-right, like Geert Wilders' PVV, and the far-left, like the Socialist Party, have called for Nexit (Dutch Brexit) arguing that the EU is undemocratic. I’m not for Nexit, but I see their point; the Dutch farmers protests of 2019, and the subsequent re-shifting of the Dutch political landscape with the rise of the BBB Farmer’s Party, was the direct result of untenable EU nitrogen regulations that Mark Rutte’s government shoved down farmer’s throats. (The PVV dropped Nexit from its platform in 2024, as part of a successful broader effort to mainstream themselves).
Anyway, all jacked up the intoxicating drug of deregulation (or literally ketamine, if you’re Elon Musk), the eyes of American oligarchs are on the EU and UK.
US Vice President JD Vance has suggested that the US could withdraw support from NATO if European authorities regulate Elon Musk and X too much. Musk has made wild accusations against British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, claiming he covered up a sexual abuse scandal. Mark Zuckerberg misleadingly claimed that “Europe has an ever increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there,” as part of his announcement that Facebook will end its third-party fact-checking program.
Zuckerberg was referring to the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) of 2022, a law that requires social media platforms to remove posts that violate content rules. Troubling to Facebook: the DSA allows regulators to fine tech companies up to six percent of their yearly annual revenue for failing to comply.
So, yes, tech billionaires have financial motives to run around European regulations. As if they need more money. But there’s more to it than that. American capitalism is much more unfettered than European capitalism, both in spirit and in fact; in Europe, even despite the last twenty years of neoliberal policies in countries like the Netherlands, we are more amenable to regulation. European business leaders want to maximize profit as much as Americans do, but worker and consumer protections are more accepted as a cost of doing business. American oligarchs hate this. They look at this and they want to piss on it. And with Trump in office they think that now is their chance.
Which is why this is a huge opportunity for the European Union as a governing body to prove its worth. At its best, the EU provides regulations to protect us as workers, citizens, and consumers. These regulations protect Europeans better than Americans. If the EU stares down Trump and the billionaires and demands that American companies protect European citizens according to European values, it could justify its existence in the face of challenges from the left and right. It could partially make up for its more complicated regulations, like nitrogen.
So far, it looks like the EU isn’t up to this task, probably because they’re afraid if they do anything to piss Trump off he could withdraw from NATO. Last week, the EU announced that it would reassess all of its investigations into Apple, Meta, and Google that it launched since last March. Fines will be paused until the investigation is complete.
This is a bad sign for European consumers, and it’s a bad sign for the EU and its future. And individual member states, like the Netherlands, are hamstrung, unable to act because all of this regulation is supposed to happen at the EU level. A heated committee debate in The Hague last week went nowhere.
Let’s hope the EU stands strong and uses this opportunity to show us what it’s worth.
🔥 Hot Linkjes
Society
Every year more people seek out euthanasia for psychological reasons, creating a moral dilemma for the Dutch right-to-die system. I usually criticize foreign articles about euthanasia in the NL for failing to grapple with the nuance around it in Dutch society; on the contrary, this is one of the best I’ve read. Undark.
Pesticides have been found in coffee shop weed. Guardian.
Politics
Venezuela has restricted the number of diplomats from the NL it will allow in the country following Dutch condemnation of the disputed re-election of president Nicolás Maduro. Opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the true victor, first took refuge after the election at the Dutch embassy before going into exile in Spain. France24.
The Dutch again bowed to US pressure and tightened export controls on advanced semiconductor equipment sold by ASML, the largest Dutch company. I wrote about how the Dutch fell victim to the US-China trade war here.
The government is considering measures to protect the International Criminal Court, located in The Hague, following threats of US sanctions. NL Times.
Arts & Books & Design
Apartment Therapy profiled the apartment of an Irishman in The Hague.
Tech & Health
British parents of epileptic children are increasingly traveling to the Netherlands for cheap full-spectrum cannabis oil used to treat seizures BBC.
A number of people were infected with Hepatitis A after eating frozen blueberries from Albert Heijn. Food Safety News.
Crime
A Dutch CEO was killed in Nigeria while attempting to escape kidnapping. NL Times.
Monks from two Dutch abbeys are being investigated for sexual abuse. The Brussels Times.
🥳 Leuke Dingetjes
A three-year vocational program in Eindhoven specializes in metal music.
📺 Kijk/Lees/Luister List
Not necessarily Dutch stuff I enjoyed watching, reading, and listening to this week.
TV / Movies
I was sick with the flu last week and watched a ton of movies. One of my favorite discoveries was The Last Seduction (1994), a femme fatale story unlike any other I’ve ever seen. Linda Fiorentino running her cold-hearted game was thrilling.
I streamed it on the Criterion Channel while in the US, hopefully it’s not too hard to find in the NL.
To see my reviews of everything I’ve watched recently, follow me on Letterboxd.
Articles / Books
“The Los Angeles fires didn’t have to be this way,” by Ben Burgis in Jacobin.
“In LA,” by Colm Tóibín in the London Review of Books.
“Greenland: Denmark’s post-colonial dilemma,” by Michael Booth in Engelsberg Ideas
*all typos in this post are on purpose
Nice article, as usual, but defining the EU as a maker and enforcer of regulations is really missing the point. Well, a LOT of points. Think of the four freedoms, the rebuilding of destroyed economies after WWII, Schengen, common immigration policies, cultural activities, the Euro, scientific cooperation, health cooperation etc etc etc. Not to mention the intellectual and emotional dimensions of founding and expanding the EU after the fall of Communism.
From what I heard, the polluting farmers were being offered a pretty nice buy out but didn't want to change anything. If the alternative is deadly (to natural areas and climate) pollution, then, like in the US, you end up with rule by the greedy and ignorant that will kill off everybody, don't you? I only have a general knowledge of the stikstof issue, but it sounded like a good, if difficult, compromise had been reached until the group wanting nothing to change had a big tantrum (that was not met with anywhere near the same police enforcement as that afforded the group trying to stop global warming). What other options are there? The current government has no solution I think. Or was the problem a compromised Rutte adminitration and skillfull framing of issues by the BBB/PVV? Thank you for great info.