US ambassador threatens EU with devastating retaliation over tech rules

US Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder has warned that European companies could face "devastating" retaliation from Washington if Brussels restricts American technology firms, telling the Financial Times that European businesses should be wary given the size of the US market. The warning, delivered on October 19, lands as the European Commission pushes ahead with technological sovereignty rules and as four of Europe's largest telecom operators — Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone — announced a letter of intent to explore a joint bid for European satellite spectrum.

Puzder framed the EU's regulatory agenda as an illegitimate attempt to hobble American competitors. "You don't make European companies more competitive by making U.S. companies less competitive," he said, adding that Washington offers "best-in-class products" and has no need for "some kind of synchronised mediocrity." He questioned whether enforcement of the Digital Markets Act — which regulates gatekeepers including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft — is about competition at all, or about generating revenue from American companies.

The question has a certain bite. French European Affairs Minister Benjamin Haddad suggested in September that proceeds from fines on Google, which he valued at €4.6 billion, should automatically lower member states' contributions to the EU budget. A regulator that budgets fine revenue from foreign firms into its own accounts is no longer purely a referee, and Washington has noticed.

The threats extend beyond competition law. The Commission's May proposal for allocating the 2 GHz frequency band — the spectrum behind direct-to-satellite mobile connections — does not explicitly ban SpaceX or other American operators, but the European operators' coordinated bid suggests Brussels wants the orbital real estate held domestically. Meanwhile, a separate dispute has broken out over Starshield, the military package of SpaceX's Starlink service used by Ukraine's armed forces. President Zelensky called a three-day restriction on the service that disrupted combat missions a "message" from the American government; an adviser said the terminals cut out when moving faster than 100 mph and that no advance notice was given. British Defence Secretary Wes Streeting confirmed access was restored after he was personally reassured by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

Puzder urged Europe to "let go of this regulatory mindset" because, he argued, the US and Europe are in a race with China on AI and quantum computing — a race he said the US could win alone, "but it'd be a lot easier if we were working with Europe instead of fighting Europe."

The framing is familiar: Washington presents its own commercial interests as a shared civilizational project, and any European regulation of its own market as an act of aggression. Europe has already paid €197 billion for Russian energy since 2022 while financing Ukraine's defense, and now discovers that the satellite link guiding its battlefield drones can be switched off from California without notice. The question of who sets the rules on the European market is no longer academic — and neither is the question of what Europe pays to keep the right to set them.