US threatens EU digital services market access
57 comments
·December 17, 2025reacharavindh
whazor
I think you can make a bigger list of US firms that are benefiting from EU laws, like Epic Games, Garmin, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft. But these companies are again also benefiting from maybe other American more established and US protected companies.
shellwizard
What alternatives to Microsoft, Google, IBM or AWS exist in Europe?
input_sh
None of those are products, those are companies that offers 100s of products.
The question is not is there as an alternative to Google-as-a-whole, but is there an alternative to Google Search (yes), to Google Analytics (yes), to Gmail (yes), to Google Ads (yes, but not really), to YouTube (no), and to Android (yes, but not really).
Having a European mega-company that offers 100s of tightly-integrated products shouldn't be the end goal, that's just swapping one monopoly with another. We need a healthly ecosystem where there are hundreds of separate companies each solving 1-5 use cases.
em-bee
just a nitpick, shouldn't youtube also be "yes, but not really", since there are plenty of alternatives to hosting video. but none have the reach that youtube has, similar to ads?
jack_tripper
[dead]
nephihaha
If these hadn't been allowed to emerge as monopolies we would have a wider selection.
matwood
Possibly. Until recently, anyone who was in tech wanted to move to the US because there was simply more opportunity. Salaries are higher, chances of making it big are higher, failing is often seen as a positive in the US, etc... The adage that the best place to make money is the US and the best place to spend money is the EU still rings true.
The US become less welcoming to immigrants is a great opportunity for the EU, but it remains to be seen if they will be able to take advantage and overcome the structural differences.
https://www.challenge.org/insights/structural-differences-in...
jonnybgood
Is that really the case for the EU? The EU doesn’t seem to foster an environment for competitive companies that can operate at the necessary scale the above listed can.
csomar
No you would only have the European selection.
McDyver
You're actually making the exact point you want to attack.
That's why Europe needs that push to get their act together and start being self-sufficient, digital services-wise.
grunder_advice
Long term, it would be good for the EU if tech market access was restricted. The reason there aren't EU tech giants is because the US and EU are basically one market, so naturally, all tech giants end up being American. So it's not in the interest of the US to restrict market access in anyway and these tech giants know it.
throwaway13337
The tariff talk was ostensibly because the EU exported more goods to the US than the US exported to EU.
The US exports far more digital services to the EU, though.
Understanding those things, it would seem a particularly unwise framing for the US government to focus on EU digital services exports.
LLMs are rapidly commoditizing software, and in particular making it far easier to handle the regulatory compliance and regional fragmentation that have traditionally held back software companies in the EU. Combine that with growing concerns about software trust, and the EU looks like an increasingly attractive bet for future software investment.
Ironic, then, that Europe seems slowest to adopt the very tool that could finally solve its fragmentation problem.
Two governments, two very different strategies to cripple themselves. The race is on.
luis_cho
If American companies don’t respect Europe regulation it’s time to Europe invest in dedicated software competing with office 365, social networks, even android/apple/windows os.
closewith
Many EU Governments run entirely on MS/Meta/Amazon and to a lessor extent Google services. Many (most?) government services run on Azure or AWS, and huge parts of the continent run on WhatsApp.
RobotToaster
Which is a huge mistake.
We should have learned that the USA can't be trusted when Nixon ended bretton woods so it didn't have to give France it's gold back.
4gotunameagain
“It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.”
closewith
Agreed, and all the worse for being completely foreseeable.
techterrier
And are rushing to get away! I work on a product thats source available and self hosted. Many of our new customers are EU gov agencies.
closewith
Good to hear, but probably depends on the country. Ireland is all-in on Azure and only deepening ties.
mooiedingen
[dead]
pera
f_devd
Remind me to never look at twitter replies again, by far most counterproductive threads I've seen
stakhanov
The E.U. making life difficult for U.S.-based monopolists, and the U.S. making life difficult for E.U.-based monopolists? For a net effect of life being difficult for all monopolists?
Well, that sounds like a wonderful idea!
I am all for it. Through this model, we might actually enjoy effective antitrust enforcement, and escape regulatory capture! Who would have thought that this day would ever come? Once again, it turns out I have been too cynical all my life.
zkmon
US would like entire world to adapt American laws, values, norms, morals, life styles, mindset, ethics etc. Any deviation would, ofcourse, be uncomfortable.
fxtentacle
Yay, jackpot! We taunted the monkey in the glass box into throwing the first stone.
The EU is just itching for any opportunity to get rid of US tech firms because they’re increasingly seen as sovereignty risks. And while the GDPR fines (that this likely refers to) appear huge on absolute terms, they are still low enough that US firms voluntarily decide to violate those laws and just pay the fines.
The US sees TikTok as a risk. For the EU, it’s Microsoft Office.
jeroenhd
> the GDPR fines (that this likely refers to)
I think the American government is mad at the DMA more than anything. Breaking up the monopolies that are currently firmly held by American tech giants goes directly against the interests of the White House, especially now that they're able to openly bribe the president.
luis_cho
Since when Accenture is European? It’s this because these companies are not Palantir?
jeroenhd
Accenture is operating from Ireland, legally speaking. It may be in American hands, serving American shareholders and American interests, and it may have been started as a European front for an American business, but it's technically an EU company.
I don't think those kinds of details matter to a government looking to start yet another trade war, though. The list is based on the question "what legally European tech companies do business in America, sorted by income".
Brajeshwar
Being officially HQ-ed in Dublin, Ireland might be the reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accenture
kevin061
Please destroy US tech, Ursula.
cyberlad24
Mutatis mutandis, the same applies in the opposite direction.
null
Throwing stone from a glass box eh? If I understand correctly, US is by far the largest services exporter to EU… should EU merely apply the same “tariffs” that US might impose on these goods, some healthy European alternatives would finally gain some ground..