Washington has opened a new front in transatlantic trade tensions, signaling immediate retaliation against European firms if Brussels moves forward with policies that sideline American satellite operators such as SpaceX.
The warning came from Andrew Puzder, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, during an interview with the Financial Times published March 18. His remarks target a European Commission proposal from last May that would reserve at least two-thirds of new 2-gigahertz frequency rights for EU-based operators. Current spectrum holders include U.S. companies Viasat and EchoStar, whose licenses expire next May.
Puzder did not mince words about the consequences. Given the scale of the American market, he said, European companies “should be wary that such a thing could happen and, if it does, could be very damaging to those companies.”
The frequency allocation plan forms part of a broader EU push for what officials call digital sovereignty. Brussels has grown uneasy about the dominance of American tech giants, and the proposal would effectively constrain spectrum access for both U.S. and Chinese satellite firms, including SpaceX’s Starlink service. The plan still requires approval from the European Parliament and member states.
Meanwhile, the European Commission floated another initiative on June 3, the Cloud and AI Development Act, aimed at shielding sensitive data and expanding Europe’s cloud infrastructure. Puzder acknowledged Europe’s right to protect government information but warned against weaponizing such rules. “If the purpose is to undermine U.S. competitiveness, I don’t consider that is a legitimate objective for such legislation,” he said.
The ambassador also took aim at the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which took effect in 2022 and imposes strict obligations on designated tech giants including Amazon, Apple, and ByteDance. He questioned whether Brussels genuinely seeks fair competition or simply wants to extract billions in fines from American companies to fund European priorities.
As a result, Puzder urged the EU to shift focus away from regulation and toward joint competition with China in artificial intelligence and quantum computing. The bloc, he argued, should “relocate away from a regulatory mindset focused on blocking things.”
