EU-US Trade Deal entrenches Europe’s technological dependency
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The agreed 15% tariff is based on Trump’s misleading trade deficit narrative: Europe imports more than €300 billion in digital services from the US annually, offsetting the goods deficit. At the same time, the EU already applies significantly lower tariffs on many US goods than vice versa – for instance on cars.
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Despite offering US tech giants more favorable tax treatments than local competitors—especially SMEs—the EU still fails to impose a common digital tax on their revenues in the European market.
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DIGITAL SME calls on the European Commission and Member States to reassess the agreement during the forthcoming detailed negotiations to protect Europe’s strategic autonomy and strengthen its own technological base.
The European Commission’s recently announced trade deal with the United States risks locking the European economy into a deeper reliance on American suppliers. Commitments to increase imports of US LNG, AI chips, and military products will channel significant European investment into US industries at the expense of European capacity building. At the same time, the 15% tariff on EU exports puts pressure on many European sectors, while favoring the US exports that benefit from reduced tariffs. In the digital sector, US tech giants remain untouched—despite their significantly more favorable tax treatment than many European firms.
The deal also coincides with the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan, a strategy aimed at consolidating US digital imperialism by exporting the entire American AI stack—chips, software, cloud, and standards—making allies structurally dependent on US technology. The announced bundling of NVIDIA AI chips’ exports with US cloud and software services would further limit Europe’s room to develop its own competitive digital ecosystem. It is time for EU policymakers to open their eyes to the systemic risk of locking Europe’s future into foreign-controlled technology stacks.
“The White House’s tariff policy is built on a distorted view of the transatlantic trade relationship. While the US highlights a deficit in goods, it ignores the €300+ billion Europe imports annually in US digital services.[1] This imbalance exposes the structural dominance of American technology in the European economy—contributing to Europe’s productivity gap. Only by advancing a genuine strategy for technological autonomy can Europe reclaim political sovereignty and boost its economic competitiveness.”
DIGITAL SME President – Dr Oliver Grün
DIGITAL SME urges the European Commission to use the upcoming technical negotiations to rebalance the agreement. Any long-term deal must include safeguards for European technological sovereignty and a concrete plan to build a European tech stack capable of competing on equal terms.
For any media inquiries on this matter, please contact:
Sofia Gottarelli, Events and Communications Manager (European DIGITAL SME Alliance) at s.gottarelli@digitalsme.eu
