On December 23, 2025, the US State Department imposed visa restrictions on five European figures associated with the formation and promotion of a stricter regulatory regime for online platforms in Europe.
Among them are former European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton, leaders of the German HateAid Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate Imran Ahmed, and co-founder of the Global Disinformation Index Clare Melford.
Washington justified the move as protection of freedom of speech and countering extraterritorial pressure on American platforms under the guise of combating disinformation and hate speech.
The visa restrictions shift the dispute between the U.S. and the EU over the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act into the realm of state interests. The target is no longer an abstract Brussels, but specific architects of the EU’s regulatory extraterritoriality.
This creates risks for American companies, U.S. informational influence in Europe, and, more broadly, the democratic camp’s ability to maintain a technological advantage over the autocratic axis.
Washington does not see Europe’s strength as a problem. On the contrary, from a realist perspective, the United States needs a strong Europe as a secondary support for containing the PRC and Russia, including in areas such as arms production, sanctions enforcement, critical infrastructure protection, and the resilience of democracies to subversive operations.
The problem for the US arises when European regulatory expansion regarding digital platforms undermines the technological base of American power and creates a new line of fracture within the democratic coalition, which Western opponents can convert into a competitive advantage.
In this construction, the EU’s digital sovereignty becomes a question of allied compatibility and resilience of the democratic world’s information space.
Washington draws a line between the growth of European capabilities in defense, industrial policy, and de-risking from the PRC, and attempts to impose on American platforms a European model of content control, which in the US is perceived as political censorship and abuse of regulatory power.
The visa restrictions form a precedent that digital rules, which in Brussels are presented as an internal market, in Washington are interpreted as a foreign policy act with consequences for freedom of speech, Big Tech competitiveness, and transatlantic unity.
The tariff-trade compromise of summer 2025 fixed the asymmetry of levers. The package with a general 15% rate on a broad basket of imports from the EU, retention of high tariffs on steel and aluminum, and parallel expectations of investments and energy purchases fixed the US ability to convert access to its market into political results.
For Brussels, this became a reminder that regulatory power does not compensate for the deficit of classic instruments of power, and for Washington, it is a model of tying an ally to a common strategic trajectory in confronting the PRC.
The US uses the instrument of migration control as a mechanism of political persuasion of European allies, avoiding interstate procedures while personalizing responsibility for regulatory decisions that hit American digital giants.
The sizes of fines on American technology companies exceed tax revenues from their activities, forming a paradoxical model of fiscal interaction.
Fines against Twitter, Meta, Google, and Apple are measured in hundreds of millions and billions of euros, while the same companies invest significantly larger sums in European AI startups, infrastructure, and software.
This imbalance creates for the US an argument that the EU does not stimulate innovation, but monetizes regulatory power, blocking competition and weakening the Western technological camp in the global confrontation with China.
The $140 million fine imposed on Twitter became for the EU a demonstrative launch of the Digital Services Act mechanisms as an instrument of direct influence on the behavior of global platforms, where the regulator sets the framework for permissible digital policy.
For Washington, the size of the fine is not important, but the precedent that the European regulator establishes rules of behavior for an American platform in a sphere that the US considers the core of the First Amendment and part of national power.
The parallel track with TikTok highlighted the risk of asymmetric practice. In the case regarding the advertising repository, TikTok avoided sanctions by accepting commitments and corrective steps. For the US, this creates a double signal.
The EU demonstrates readiness to punish an American platform publicly, but simultaneously leaves room for settlement for a Chinese player, which ultimately may reduce pressure on a platform that has structural ties to an autocratic system and potentially provides Beijing with additional instruments of influence.
The US reaction to this case goes beyond corporate conflict—the blocking of the European Commission’s advertising account by platform X (former Twitter) after the fine only emphasized that the conflict is entering a phase of direct confrontation between the EU’s regulatory power and American technology giants.
In parallel, the EU is accelerating de-risking from the PRC on critical materials, which directly aligns with the American strategic line on displacing Chinese control from sensitive chains.
On December 3, 2025, the European Commission adopted the RESourceEU Action Plan as a superstructure to the Critical Raw Materials Act, with mobilization of up to 3 billion euros over 12 months, formation of financial de-risking instruments through the EIB, and preparation of institutional infrastructure for 2026, including the European Critical Raw Materials Centre.
This package directly acknowledges Chinese dominance across all stages of the chain and sets the goal of diversification so that dependence on one country does not exceed 65% of demand.
In parallel, Brussels is preparing restrictions on the export of wastes and scrap containing materials for recycling and reuse, including magnetic materials and battery scrap from early 2026, and is bringing into the political agenda the retention of raw materials and added value within the Union.
The window for maneuver is narrow, as the EU publicly welcomed the PRC’s decision to temporarily, for 12 months, suspend part of export restrictions on rare earth materials, which creates a temptation to postpone structural decisions, but does not remove the risk of resuming Chinese coercion as the baseline scenario.
Another line of EU economic security runs through restrictions on uncontrolled flows of cheap imports. On December 12, 2025, the EU Council agreed on a fixed customs fee of 3 euros on small parcels worth up to 150 euros from July 1, 2026, which directly hits Chinese e-commerce platforms and removes part of the fiscal-regulatory asymmetry at the border.
In aggregate, RESourceEU, export restrictions, and new customs rules form a European contour of economic security regarding the PRC, but this contour requires political synchronization with the US, because any deep rift with Washington on digital rules creates for Beijing a field to play on contradictions among democratic allies.
The key contradiction lies in the fact that the EU is trying simultaneously to wage a tough regulatory war with American Big Tech and accelerate strategic distancing from China, without having its own full-fledged technological and raw material core.
Washington applies a similar mechanism of levers to London as well. In December 2025, the US suspended the implementation of the Technology Prosperity Deal with the United Kingdom, which was a framework for cooperation in artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and civil nuclear energy, accompanied by a large package of investment expectations.
The American motivation was tied to London’s unwillingness to make concessions on trade and regulatory issues, including digital taxes and online safety rules, which in Washington is perceived as a direct risk to American technology giants.
In parallel, the administration opened a legal front against British soft power through President Trump’s lawsuit against the BBC for at least $10 billion in connection with the editing of fragments of the speech from January 6, 2021, in a documentary product.
This case fits into Washington’s broader line of maximum toughness in the sphere of information power, reputational attacks, and rules of public communication, which in American logic are considered an element of national security.
At the same time, Brussels in response seeks ways to build a denser architecture of coalition ties with Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia as an expanded Euro-Atlantic contour, which reduces Europe’s dependence on decisions in Washington, but simultaneously strengthens the ability of Western allies to maintain a long-term line of containing authoritarian regimes.
The transatlantic track is entering a phase of tough trade-technological interaction, where digital regulation has become a marker of discipline within the democratic camp.
Visa restrictions, fines under the DSA, the pause in a major technology deal with Britain, and the growing U.S. readiness to link tariff concessions with European policy toward Big Tech are seen by the White House as tools to protect freedom of speech, economic competitiveness, and the global influence of American technology centers.
These measures are intended to strengthen the U.S. position during systemic competition with the PRC.
For Washington, the strategic interest lies in preserving a single technological and regulatory space of democracies as the material basis for containing the PRC and as infrastructure for countering Russian and Chinese subversive operations.
In the absence of aligning digital policy with principles of allied compatibility, any fragmentation of moderation standards, data access, and platform responsibility transforms into a systemic advantage for Beijing, which converts divergences among Western countries into its own competitive geopolitical advantage.
