Trump’s State Department Wants to Use Tech Policy to Remake Europe In Its Image

The Trump administration appears to be engaged in a dramatic project to replace the United States’ traditional alliances with European nations, including through efforts to support ideological allies on the continent’s far-right. Tech policy and culture wars over content moderation on social media platforms are key to the effort.

This project is proceeding often in oblique ways. For instance: the US State Department is seemingly obsessed with Europe’s Digital Services Act, or DSA. The DSA regulates technology companies, particularly online platforms like Facebook, X, YouTube and TikTok. Under that law, platforms must submit regular transparency reports, partake in risk audits and act quickly to remove illegal content. Proponents of the law say it contains reasonable safeguards for free expression and that content moderation is essential to maintain a digital public square in which people feel safe enough to speak freely. Opponents, particularly right-wing figures, accuse the DSA of enabling government censorship.

This debate has entangled the DSA within trade disputes between the US and the European Union, but the State Department’s fixation runs deeper than mercantilism. While social media companies have been eager to collaborate with the US government to roll back foreign regulations, officials at the State Department are currently working to redefine transatlantic relations. Their aspiration appears to be a Europe united under far-right rule, which treats liberalism as a common enemy and casts aside the rules-based international order that brought the continent eight decades of relative peace. Tech policy has become a blunt instrument toward that larger goal.