Teresa Ribera has pushed back against the US president’s demands to ease bloc digital and speech regulations
The EU should listen to US President Donald Trump but must never yield to his demands, Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s vice-president, stated in an interview with the Financial Times published on Friday.
Brussels should listen but not blindly submit to demands from Washington to ditch laws on ‘green’ supply chains and social media regulation, Ribera told FT.
Her remarks come amid growing tensions between the Trump administration and the EU, with Washington increasingly criticizing the bloc for what it describes as an excessive reliance on regulation and what it views as censorship of free speech. In particular, the EU’s digital rulebook has become a major point of contention between Brussels and Trump.
”It’s not by chance that it’s the green and digital agenda that are under threat. They are the main drivers of competitiveness,” the commission’s executive vice-president told the Financial Times.
Following the EU’s multi-billion dollar fines against Google and Apple earlier this year, Trump threatened to impose further tariffs on the bloc, accusing it of “discriminatory actions” that he argued would impact US taxpayers.
Since Trump’s return to the White House earlier this year, EU-US relations have grown strained with trade, defense spending and digital regulation disputes.
Washington and Brussels have also increasingly disagreed on the Ukraine conflict settlement process, with Trump sidelining the EU and UK from peace talks earlier this year.
More recently, Kiev’s Western European backers have moved to sabotage the US president’s peace efforts centered around his settlement roadmap while preparing for a direct conflict with Russia, according to Moscow.
