Trump strikes blow against ‘protectionist’ EU | World | News

JD Vance, Donald Trump’s outspoken Vice President, struck a blow against the “protectionist” EU after becoming frustrated by the bloc’s attacks on freedom of speech, a Brussels insider has explained.

Mr Trump’s right-hand man made his remarks during a speech at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris on Monday, warning the EU’s regulatory framework risked “killing a transformative industry”.

He further insisted a heavy-handed approach would stifle innovation and economic growth, urging European leaders to embrace a more permissive stance which aligned with the US administration’s preference for minimal oversight.

Pieter Cleppe, editor of BrusselsReport.EU, told the Express: “JD Vance is reminding the EU that the Trump administration is deeply concerned about the EU’s regular attacks on US ‘big tech’, which includes record fines and attacks on free speech on social media platforms.

Mr Trump had previously criticised EU regulators for targeting US tech giants, describing their competition policy cases against American companies as “a form of taxation”, Mr Cleppe pointed out.

Referring to Mr Vance, he continued: “He thereby referred to how the EU Commission, otherwise not overly bothered by state aid and national subsidies, used the EU Treaty ban on ‘state aid’ to order Apple to pay a whopping 13 billion euros in back taxes to the Irish Government, where Apple’s EU operation is headquartered.

“The newly assertive American stance also signifies that the EU will be forced to reflect on whether to change its new tech regulations, like the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, which have been instrumentalised against US big tech and free speech.

“It follows warnings not only from Elon Musk but also from Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, who has complained that “Europe has an ever increasing number of laws institutionalising censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there.”

Additionally, the Trump administration was trying to force the EU to abandon its approach to use regulation for protectionist purposes, Mr Cleppe claimed.

For example, Trump ally and Republican Congressman Andy Barr had warned that ‘an America first agenda will animate ferocious opposition to a European Union that attempts to impose their costly, burdensome regulations on American firms’.

This was a reference to new EU regulations requiring companies to report on their environmental footprint, as well as new EU deforestation rules that impose lots of extra bureaucracy for importing products deemed to cause deforestation into the EU, Mr Cleppe said.

He continued: “As a result of the concerns of trading partners, the EU had already decided to postpone these rules until 2026, also because there wasn’t enough clarity on how a system of risk categorisation would work.

“Countries like Malaysia, which have been lauded by NGOs for strongly reducing deforestation in recent years in the context of their palm oil exports, maintain they are therefore low-risk.

“However, the fundamental problem is that the EU continues to refuse to simply treat the country’s local (MSPO) certification scheme as equivalent, in contrast to for example the UK. This truly amounts to a unilateral and protectionist approach that is at the heart of Trump’s bid to challenge the EU.”

Speaking to assembled leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Mr Vance said: “The Trump administration, believes that AI will have countless revolutionary applications in economic innovation, job creation, national security, health care, free expression and beyond, and to restrict its development now will not only unfairly benefit incumbents in this space, it would mean paralysing one of the most promising technologies we have seen in generations.”

Outlining four priorities, he continued: “This administration will ensure that American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide, and we are the partner of choice for other foreign countries and certainly businesses as they expand their own use of AI.

“Number two, we believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it’s taking off, and we’ll make every effort to encourage pro-growth AI policies, and I’d like to see that deregulatory flavour making its way into a lot of the conversations at this conference.

“Number three, we feel very strongly that AI must remain free from ideological bias, and that American AI will not be co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship.

“Number four, the Trump administration will maintain a pro worker growth path for AI, so it can be a potent tool for job creation in the United States.”

Mr Vance stressed that the United States was the global leader in the field of AI and that the Trump administration planned to “keep it that way.”

He added: “America wants to partner with all of you. We want to embark on the AI revolution before us with the spirit of openness and collaboration.

“But to create that kind of trust, we need international regulatory regimes that foster the creation of AI technology rather than strangle it, and we need our European friends in particular to look to this new frontier with optimism.”