Archive link: https://archive.is/dpHIP

At this point, weakening any American tech company really is a matter of data sovereignty for Europe. That may not be the main reason all this started, but I think recent months have underscored Europe's need, and supercharged Europe's determination in this regard. I'd expect significant changes in EU policies regarding tech companies going forward. Mostly calibrated to decrease American dominance in the sector.

personally, I think the way to deal with this is the way the Chinese have done it (very successfully)

if US "gatekeepers" wish to operate in the European market, it will be under license, with a joint venture that is majority controlled by European shareholders, with technology transfer agreements

essentially: using their own greed against them

and if they don't like it, they can operate somewhere else

You cant have this without a great firewall.

You absolutely can, because the companies providing tech services need to get paid, either from local companies buying ads, or directly from their users, and you can just block payment to non-compliant firms.

firewall not needed, just need to remove the way for US companies to make money from advertising in Europe.

as long as ads money gravy train to USA is stopped, USA companies will leave themselves / or comply

How do you stop Europeans from accessing the services?

Chinese do it to steal IP from their joint venture

I would relish the irony of having Google, Microsoft and Facebook complain about IP theft

whilst their AI crawlers plunder any and all copyrighted material ever placed on the internet

But other search engines already crawl Google's websites. If we want to call that IP theft. The alleged IP theft against Google would be new and of a different kind than what Google is committing.

Again, if we want to call web crawling IP theft. Which seems dubious.

Yeah. I think regulations of that nature may be coming.

I think in the US, we've put ourselves in a really bad spot. Most will likely blame Trump/Vance, and they definitely deserve their share. But the American tech industry has been contributing its quota towards this break for a long time as well. And we should be honest about that.

Also, I know that no one will want to hear this on HN, but workers at American companies have also not made us any friends in Europe. There is a strong undercurrent of resentment due to some American workers not having the ability to maintain a humble and collaborative demeanor online or IRL.

This could lead to more actions by the Trump admin administration against European countries.

Not anti-trust but Cook called Trump to complain about the Irish tax outcome where Apple has to pay something like $14b

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4d75zl212o

What happens if tech companies, long seemingly supporting Democrats are wooed by Trump with promises of bullying Europe with more tariffs to stop them from going after American companies.

This would result in tech companies supporting Republicans due to the finanical benefit while controlling the messaging on their platforms

For example "Instagram and Threads will start recommending political content to users in the US." After a few years of either limiting it or providing an option(? Unsure)

They will only get a financial benefit if Trump is successful in convincing EU to change their policies, but I think it is pretty little chance of that happening.

EU policies will be decided by the europeans, and if the US tries to coerce EU e.g. with tariffs, EU will use it’s “economic bazooka” the Anti-Coercion Instrument which will target some of the same US tech companies.

https://www.ft.com/content/7303e57e-67ca-477a-8d00-8d5213f71...

> What happens if tech companies, long seemingly supporting Democrats are wooed by Trump with promises of bullying Europe with more tariffs to stop them from going after American companies.

This has already happened. There is just friction between executives and company culture.

Have previous administrations been as aggressive against other countries due to their policies?

For example with South Africa

" “The United States won’t stand for it, we will act,” Trump added. “Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”

https://www.jurist.org/features/2025/02/11/explainer-underst...

Even if tech companies wanted this and previous admins tried diplomatic pressure or discussions I don't believe it was to the level that we are seeing now.

Im sorry, I dont understand your point. I'm talking about Zuckerberg, Bezos, Cook, etc. all appealing to Trump to fight back against EU regulation and continuing to advance their interests globally. They are all very much in favor of Trump's view of EU regulation on US tech companies.

"The original decision covered the period from 1991 to 2014. The European Commission is trying to retroactively change the rules and ignore that, as required by international tax law, our income was already subject to taxes in the US."

how is this not trade war by EU. They are making apple pay taxes from 3 decades ago?