The EU should reassess its trade deal with the United States if President Donald Trump follows through on his threats to punish the bloc over its tech regulations, Brussels’ competition chief has warned in an interview with the Financial Times.
Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s executive vice president, told the newspaper in an interview published Friday that the EU must be “courageous” and “avoid the temptation of being subordinated to others’ interests” by diluting its landmark Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, which have come under attack by Trump and his allies, to appease Washington.
The remarks followed Trump’s threat this week to slap tariffs and other controls on nations whose digital rules “discriminate” against American firms. His administration has repeatedly criticized the EU’s DSA, accusing the bloc of censorship and regulatory overreach.
“We may be kind, polite, try to find ways to solve problems and discrepancies, but we cannot accept whatever [they demand],” Ribera said, in comments that could be read as a rebuke of the EU’s approach to the negotiations with the Trump administration. “We cannot be subject to the will of a third country.”
The EU’s sovereignty was at stake, the Spanish Socialist added. “This is quite an obvious thing that we will defend,” she said. “We cannot play with our values just to accommodate the concerns of others.”
Ribera, who is the second-most powerful Commission official after President Ursula von der Leyen, added the EU would not delay probes into U.S. tech giants, such as Elon Musk’s X. “American tech companies are making great profits out of this market, but they are subject to the same laws and regulations than any other player,” she said.
Another top EU official, Industrial Strategy Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné, said this week the EU-U.S. trade deal should be reviewed if Trump’s “intentions” turned into “declarations,” in a sign of a growing revolt inside the EU’s executive at the institutional response to the American saber-rattling.
Von der Leyen and Trump shook hands on the trade deal in July, setting a baseline 15 percent tariff for most European exports into the U.S. The European Commission has defended the pact, criticized in some European capitals as an embarrassing capitulation, as the only way to avoid an all-out trade war and a way of keeping the U.S. on-side when it comes to Europe’s — and Ukraine’s — long-term security.
The pact includes a somewhat vague pledge by the EU to purchase $750 billion in American energy, but Ribera cast doubt on whether that was even possible. “It’s not the European Commission who buys energy goods,” she said. “It is not even — in most cases — the member states who do that.”
Ribera also called it “a shame” that the bloc has been unable to agree on “concrete actions” to punish Israel over the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel has ramped up its offensive with an expanded military operation in Gaza City, despite mounting international backlash and a U.N.-backed body declaring a famine in the besieged enclave.
In July, the European Commission proposed partly suspending Israel from its flagship Horizon science research program over human rights concerns, but a qualified majority of EU countries did not support the measure.
“We need to assess, to work and to fight to get something meaningful … because time is running out,” Ribera said.
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