Amid Trump’s attacks and armed sanctions, Europeans are looking to rely less on American technology

Imagine a world where your credit card no longer works, your Amazon account is closed, and using American tech companies is no longer an option. It is nearly impossible to shop online, make bank transfers to a family member abroad, or rely on anything related to the United States, including the US dollar.

For one Canadian, this is her reality now.

Last year, the Trump administration added Kimberly Prost, a judge at the International Criminal Court, to the economic sanctions list, after she served on the appeals chamber that in 2020 unanimously allowed the ICC prosecutor to investigate alleged war crimes in Afghanistan since 2003, including for US service members. The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court and does not recognize its authority. The Trump administration also imposed sanctions on several other judges and prosecutors at the International Criminal Court.

Prost, whose name now shares the same list as some of the world’s most dangerous people, from terrorists to North Korean hackers and Iranian spies, described the impact of sanctions on her life as “paralyzing” in an interview with The Irish Times.

This landmark case provides a glimpse into the disruption that being cut off from the United States can have on anyone’s daily life; Lawmakers and government leaders across Europe are becoming more aware of the looming threat facing them at home, and of their over-reliance on American technology.

Trump’s diplomatic escalations and upending of international norms, including the arrest of a foreign leader and the threat of invasion of NATO and a European ally, have prompted some EU countries to consider turning away from American technology and reclaiming their digital sovereignty. This shift in thinking comes at a time when the Trump administration has become increasingly unpredictable and vindictive.

In Belgium, the country’s cybersecurity chief, Miguel De Bruycker, admitted in a recent interview that Europe had “lost the Internet” to the United States, which had hoarded a great deal of the world’s technology and financial systems. De Bruycker said it was “currently impossible” to store data entirely in Europe as a result of US dominance of digital infrastructure, and urged the EU to boost technology across the bloc.

The European Parliament voted on January 22 to adopt a report directing the European Commission to identify areas where the EU can reduce its dependence on foreign service providers. Parliamentarians said that the European Union and its 27 member states depend on countries outside the European Union for more than 80% of its products, services and digital infrastructure. The vote was non-binding, but comes at a time when the European Commission is moving to bring more of its technologies and credits to its territory.

The French government said on Tuesday that it will replace Zoom and Microsoft Teams with its homegrown video conferencing software Visio, according to French Minister of Civil Service and State Reform David Amiel.

Concerns about digital sovereignty are not new; they go back decades, at least to 2001, when the United States introduced the Patriot Act in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The Patriot Act allowed US intelligence agencies to monitor the world in ways they had never been allowed to before, including spying on the communications of citizens of its closest allies in Europe, despite strict data protection and privacy rules imposed by the European Union.

Microsoft admitted years later in 2011 that, as an American technology company, it might be forced to hand over European data in response to a secret order from the American government. Much of this surveillance was virtually undetected until 2013 through secret documents leaked by then-NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

At the individual consumer level, there has also been a coordinated campaign urging users to move away from US technology providers and technologies, with tech workers calling on their CEOs to speak out against the increasing brutality of US federal immigration agents.

Freelance journalist Paris Marks has a guide to exiting US tech services, while many other sites, such as Switch-to.eu and European Alternatives, encourage users to use alternatives to big tech products and services, such as open source tools.