Trump could cut off Europe from the Internet

Trump Could Use U.S. Tech Dominance to Cut Europe Off from the Internet, Politico reports.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump could potentially exploit the dominance of American companies in the cloud services sector to cut off European countries from the internet, according to Politico.

“Trump really hates Europe. He believes the entire purpose of the EU is to ‘cheat’ America,” said Zach Meyers, Research Director at the CERRE think tank.

“The idea that he might order a shutdown or take some other action that causes serious harm to European economic interests no longer seems as far-fetched as it did six months ago,” he told reporters.

One of the most disruptive scenarios could involve the U.S. government blocking American cloud providers from offering services in Europe.

“It’s no longer reasonable to assume we can fully rely on our American partner,” said Matthias Ecke, a German Social Democrat and member of the European Parliament.

“There is a serious risk that all of our data could be accessed by the U.S. administration or that the infrastructure could become inaccessible to other countries.”

In April, Microsoft announced that it would include mandatory contract clauses with European governments to ensure continued access to cloud services and pledged to fight any shutdown orders in court.

While Microsoft President Brad Smith said the risk of the U.S. government ordering tech companies to halt operations in the EU is “extremely unlikely,” he admitted the concern is “very real for people across Europe.”