President Donald Trump’s tariff-heavy approach to trade is backfiring spectacularly, prompting the European Union to plot a course away from US technological dominance. Fresh into his second term, Trump’s barrage of threats has global partners rethinking their strategies, with the EU at the forefront of this decoupling drive.
Europe’s digital lifeblood flows through American veins. Vast swathes of data reside on US cloud services from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, which command the lion’s share of the market. In AI, US firms like OpenAI and Anthropic are miles ahead, underscoring Europe’s precarious position.
The alarm bells rang louder with Trump’s fixation on acquiring Greenland and his tariff saber-rattling. A damning European Parliament study shows the EU relies on outsiders for 80% plus of its digital ecosystem essentials.
Policymakers in Brussels are now championing ‘strategic autonomy.’ They’re scouting for non-US alternatives to replace dependencies on Google, Microsoft, and their ilk, investing in local ingenuity to fill the void.
Expert Johan Lingár from RISE and Lund University pins the blame on inertia. Governments, she notes, have long embraced a ‘comfort syndrome’—sticking to safe, familiar vendors while shunning risks and innovation. ‘Geopolitics now amplifies these risks,’ she warns, outstripping even escalating costs.
The price tag for Europe’s digital sovereignty? Bertelsmann Stiftung forecasts 300 billion euros over ten years for a full Eurostack. The Chamber of Progress offers a sobering counter: upwards of 5 trillion euros to fully stand on its own.
This pivot isn’t just reactive; it’s a clarion call for Europe to innovate or perish in the shadow of US big tech and Trump’s unpredictable policies.