US visa restrictions against several senior EU officials amount to “intimidation and coercion” aimed at undermining the bloc’s digital policies and sovereignty, French President Emmanuel Macron has said.
On Tuesday, the administration of US President Donald Trump announced new sanctions targeting Thierry Breton, the former European Commissioner for Internal Market appointed by Macron himself, and four other officials over what it described as “efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose.”
At the core of the dispute are the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, which impose strict competition and transparency obligations on large online platforms. Given that most such firms – including Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon – are headquartered in the US, American officials have argued the framework is discriminatory. Breton in particular was among the officials who played a pivotal role in establishing the EU digital rulebook.
Tensions escalated after the EU Commission fined Elon Musk’s social media platform X €120 million ($130 million) earlier in December under the Digital Services Act. US officials criticized the move as harmful to free speech and unfairly targeting an American company.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Macron said the US sanctions “amount to intimidation and coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty.” He added that the EU’s rules were adopted democratically and “are not meant to be determined outside Europe,” while insisting that they are designed to “ensure fair competition among platforms, without targeting any third country.”
The EU Commission also condemned the US move, warning that it “will respond swiftly and decisively to defend our regulatory autonomy against unjustified measures.”
The rift between the US and EU, including over digital rules, spilled into the new National Security Strategy released by Washington this month. The document warned the EU that it is facing potential “civilizational erasure” due to suppression of political opposition, curbs on free speech, and what it described as “regulatory suffocation.”