Tariffs for Truth: Why the U.S. Must Use Economic Power to Confront EU Censorship

The EU is exporting censorship through regulation. Trump has the economic power and will to push back and defend free speech.

The European Union is exporting censorship through regulatory force, using the Digital Services Act to impose left-wing speech controls on U.S. platforms and users. These efforts mirror the Biden administration’s domestic censorship apparatus—now embedded in AI systems and disguised as content moderation. President Trump has the economic power and the political will to fight back, using tariffs and trade leverage to defend free speech and dismantle digital authoritarianism at its source.

Free Speech vs. the Brussels Effect

Censorship is no longer the domain of dictatorships. In the modern West, it's been repackaged as “content moderation,” buried in bureaucratic language, and enforced by regulatory regimes with transnational reach. Nowhere is this more evident than in the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA)—a sprawling regulatory framework that forces platforms to suppress lawful speech under the pretext of safety and misinformation control.

The DSA is more than a European problem. Through the “Brussels Effect,” it extends its reach into American cyberspace by coercing U.S. firms—Meta, Google, X, Amazon, and others—into enforcing European censorship standards globally. What Brussels can’t accomplish through persuasion, it is attempting through economic coercion: obey or be fined into submission.

The result? Foreign law dictating what Americans can say, read, and publish online. That’s not partnership. That’s subjugation.

But here’s the twist: the United States has the economic leverage to stop it. And under President Trump, we finally have a commander-in-chief willing to use it.

The Leverage: Hard Numbers, Not Hollow Rhetoric

In 2024, the EU exported $605.8 billion in goods to the U.S., while the U.S. exported just $370.2 billion back. That’s a $235.6 billion trade deficit—evidence of just how dependent Europe is on access to American markets.

Drill down and the vulnerabilities become clearer:

• Germany: $157 billion in exports to the U.S.

• Ireland: $132 billion

• Italy: $69.4 billion

• France: $52.1 billion

• Netherlands: $46.5 billion

• Finland: $15.7 billion

• Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Portugal—each sends a significant share of its goods across the Atlantic.

These are not marginal flows. They are lifelines for European economies struggling with stagnant growth, demographic decline, and overregulated labor markets.

That’s why tariffs work. Even modest trade barriers on key sectors—autos, chemicals, electronics—could trigger real pain across EU capitals. A 20% tariff on German car exports alone could reduce eurozone growth by 0.3%, according to ECB estimates.

The EU Strikes Back—But Can’t Afford a Trade War

Brussels has already threatened retaliation. In response to Trump’s earlier tariff proposals, the EU prepared €26 billion (roughly $28 billion) in countermeasures targeting politically sensitive U.S. exports—agriculture, aerospace, and professional services.

But this isn’t a fair fight. In 2024, the U.S. ran a $235.6 billion goods trade deficit with the European Union—exporting $370.2 billion and importing $605.8 billion. It also held a $108.6 billion services trade surplus, exporting $427.3 billion and importing $318.7 billion. With a $30 trillion economy compared to the EU’s $18.5 trillion, the United States is far better positioned to absorb short-term trade friction. The EU, fractured, export-dependent, and internally divided, cannot. That’s the leverage—and Brussels knows it.

This Is Not Just About Trade—It’s About Liberty

Why should Americans care about EU censorship laws?

Because the DSA doesn’t stop at European users. It forces U.S. companies to suppress speech globally to remain compliant. If a tweet, meme, or article is legal in the U.S. but violates vague EU rules on “hate speech” or “disinformation,” platforms are incentivized to delete it everywhere. That includes American audiences.

This is foreign censorship masquerading as digital regulation. And the Biden administration was complicit in it.

During Biden’s tenure, the federal government engaged in systematic pressure campaigns to censor disfavored speech. The Judiciary Committee’s investigations, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, revealed how agencies coordinated with platforms and AI companies to suppress lawful political views—under the guise of “harmful bias” or “algorithmic discrimination.” The White House didn't just encourage censorship—it demanded it.

Now, that same logic is being exported to the EU and coming back like a boomerang to hit U.S. citizens through backdoor enforcement.

The AI Front: Censorship by Code

The next phase of this battle isn’t human—it’s algorithmic.

Under the DSA, platforms are required to implement “systemic risk mitigation” protocols to combat so-called misinformation. In reality, this means preemptive censorship—speech suppression hardcoded into algorithms. The same model was deployed under the Biden administration. Companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta were pressured to embed political bias filters directly into their AI systems.

Today, all major AI platforms operate with these ideological filters. I’ve documented over 60 specific, screenshot-backed examples of distinct censorship techniques—concrete evidence that these systems are engineered to amplify left-wing political narratives while suppressing those that challenge them. But it goes deeper than visible censorship. These systems manipulate emotion and use subtle, sophisticated psychological methods to steer perception—nudging users toward preapproved conclusions while masking the intervention. They don’t just tell you what to think. They guide how you think.

This isn’t content moderation. It’s digital authoritarianism at machine speed. This isn’t the future—it’s already here. And it’s totalitarianism by code.

A Strategic Tariff Response

The Trump administration can and should respond forcefully—with tariffs calibrated to punish censorship and reward cooperation.

Step 1: Target export-heavy economies—Germany, Ireland, Italy, France—where economic pain creates political pressure.

Step 2: Tie tariffs explicitly to speech. Offer immediate relief in exchange for exemptions or moratoriums on DSA enforcement against U.S.-based firms and citizens.

Step 3: Frame it properly. This isn’t trade bullying. It’s civilizational self-defense. America should never outsource its First Amendment to foreign bureaucrats or unelected regulators in Brussels.

Step 4: Leverage domestic findings. Use the Judiciary Committee’s Biden-era censorship disclosures as the moral justification for retaliatory measures. The X Files, the censorship emails, and the AI collusion letters tell the full story.

Conclusion: Tariffs for Truth

Censorship isn’t theoretical—it’s operational. Brussels and Biden built an infrastructure of digital control that spans continents. Their goal was never safety. It was narrative dominance.

Now, America has a chance to fight back—not with op-eds and hand-wringing, but with real leverage.

Tariffs are not just economic instruments—they are weapons in the fight for liberty. The EU has chosen to wage war on free expression through regulatory coercion. It’s time the United States responded with the full force of its market power—not just to defend trade, but to launch a counteroffensive against state-sponsored censorship by democratic socialist governments masquerading as guardians of democracy.

Freedom won’t be preserved through dialogue. It will be imposed through economic power. Trump has the leverage—and will—to get the job done.