Europe's growing fear: How Trump might use US tech dominance against it

Straits Times

6 hours ago

Concerns over the Trump administration's influence over US tech firms have jump-started efforts across Europe to develop digital infrastructure alternatives. PHOTO: REUTERS
Europe's growing fear: How Trump might use US tech dominance against it
- When US President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February against the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigating Israel for war crimes, Microsoft was suddenly thrust into the middle of a geopolitical fight.
For years, Microsoft had supplied the court – which is based in The Hague in the Netherlands and investigates and prosecutes human rights breaches, genocides and other crimes of international concern – with digital services such as e-mail.
Mr Trump's order abruptly threw that relationship into disarray by barring US companies from providing services to the prosecutor, Mr Karim Khan.
Soon after, Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington, helped turn off Mr Khan's ICC e-mail account, freezing him out of communications with colleagues just a few months after the court had issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel over his country's actions in the Gaza Strip.
Microsoft's swift compliance with Mr Trump's order, reported earlier by The Associated Press, shocked Europe's policymakers.
It was a wake-up call for a problem far bigger than just one e-mail account, stoking fears that the Trump administration would leverage America's tech dominance to penalise opponents, even in allied countries like the Netherlands.
'The ICC showed this can happen,' said Mr Bart Groothuis, a former head of cyber security for the Dutch Ministry of Defence who is now a member of the European Parliament. 'It's not just fantasy.'
Mr Groothuis once supported US tech firms but has done a '180-degree flip-flop', he said. 'We have to take steps as Europe to do more for our sovereignty.'
Some at the ICC are now using Proton, a Swiss company that provides encrypted e-mail services, three people with knowledge of the communications said.
Microsoft said the decision to suspend Mr Khan's e-mail was made in consultation with the ICC. The company said it has since enacted policy changes that had been in the works before the episode to protect customers in similar geopolitical situations in the future.
When the Trump administration sanctioned four additional ICC judges earlier in June, their e-mail accounts were not suspended, the company said.
Mr Brad Smith, Microsoft's president, said concerns raised by the ICC episode were a 'symptom' of a larger erosion of trust between the United States and Europe. 'The ICC issue added fuel to a fire that was already burning,' he said.
Mr Khan has been on leave from the ICC since May, pending a sexual misconduct investigation. He has denied the allegations.
An ICC spokesperson said it was taking steps to 'mitigate risks which may affect the court's personnel' and 'taking extensive measures to ensure the continuity of all relevant operations and services in the face of sanctions'.
The episode has set off alarms across Europe about how dependent European governments, businesses and citizens are on US tech companies like Microsoft for essential digital infrastructure – and how hard it will be to disentangle themselves.
Concerns about how else Mr Trump might leverage technology for political advantage has jump-started efforts across the region to develop alternatives.
Mr Casper Klynge, a former Danish and European Union diplomat who worked for Microsoft, said the episode was, in many ways, the 'smoking gun that many Europeans had been looking for'.
'If the US administration goes after certain organisations, countries or individuals, the fear is American companies are obligated to comply,' said Mr Klynge, who now works for a cyber-security company. 'It's had a profound impact,' he added.
The tech debate adds to an increasingly fractious US-European relationship over trade, tariffs and the war in Ukraine.
Mr Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance have criticised how Europe regulates US tech companies, and US officials have made digital oversight and taxation part of ongoing trade negotiations.
European regulators have argued that they need to be able to police the biggest digital platforms in their own countries without worrying that they will face political pressure and punishment from a foreign government.
'If we don't build adequate capacity within Europe, then we won't be able to make political choices any more,' said Ms Alexandra Geese, a member of the European Parliament.
Since Edward Snowden's leak of scores of documents in 2013 detailing widespread US surveillance of digital communications, Europeans have sought to diminish their reliance on US tech.
Lawmakers and regulators have targeted Apple, Meta, Google and others for anti-competitive business practices, privacy-invading services, and the spread of disinformation and other divisive content.
Yet without viable alternatives, institutions across the region have turned to US digital services.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft and other US firms control more than 70 per cent of the cloud computing market in Europe, which is the essential way for storing files, retrieving data and running other programmes, according to Synergy Research Group.
The ICC has been a long-time customer of Microsoft, which provides the court with services including the Office software suite and software for evidence analysis and file storage, according to an ICC lawyer who declined to be identified discussing internal procedures .
Microsoft has also provided cyber-security software to help the court withstand digital attacks from adversaries like Russia, which is being investigated for war crimes in Ukraine.
In February, after Mr Trump issued penalties against Mr Khan, Microsoft met ICC officials to decide how to respond. They concluded that Microsoft's broader work for the court could continue but that Mr Khan's e-mail should be suspended. He switched his correspondence to another e-mail account, said a person who has communicated with him.
Ms Sara Elizabeth Dill, a lawyer who specialises in sanctions compliance, said the Trump administration was increasingly using sanctions and executive orders to target international institutions, universities and other organisations, forcing companies to make hard choices about how to comply.
'This is a quagmire and places these corporations in a very difficult position,' she said.
How tech companies with global services respond is especially important, said Ms Sara Elizabeth Dill, a lawyer who specialises in sanctions compliance, 'as the broad repercussions are what people and organisations are primarily worried about'.
Microsoft and other US companies have sought to reassure European customers.
On June 16, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella visited the Netherlands and announced new 'sovereign solutions' for European institutions, including legal and data security protections for 'a time of geopolitical volatility'. Amazon and Google have also announced policies aimed at European customers.
Still, many institutions are exploring alternatives.
In the Netherlands, the 'subject of digital autonomy and sovereignty has the full attention of the central government', Mr Eddie van Marum, the state secretary of digitalisation in the Ministry of Interior Affairs, said in a statement . The country is working with European providers on new solutions, he said.
Denmark's digital ministry is testing alternatives to Microsoft Office. The northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein is also taking steps to cut its use of Microsoft.
In the European Union, officials have announced plans to spend billions of euros on new artificial intelligence data centres and cloud computing infrastructure that rely less on US companies.
Mr Groothuis, the Dutch member of the European Parliament, said lawmakers in Brussels were discussing policy changes that would encourage governments to favour buying tech services from EU-based companies.
'The situation is not tenable, and we see a big push from European governments to become more independent and more resilient,' said Mr Andy Yen, CEO of Proton.
European tech companies see an opportunity to win customers from their US rivals. Cloud service providers like Intermax Group, based in the Netherlands, and Exoscale, based in Switzerland, said they had seen a jump in new business.
'A few years ago, everyone was saying, 'They're our trusted partners',' Mr Ludo Baauw, Intermax's CEO, said of US tech companies, adding: 'There's been a radical change.' NYTIMES
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