Where Big Tech and Trump Are Demanding Tax Cuts and Deregulation

A new analysis shared with the Prospect shows that Big Tech is seeking changes to national law in 64 countries. The Trump regime is helping them.

https://prospect.org/2026/01/13/trump-big-tech-tax-cuts-deregulation-europe-digital-networks-act/



Last month, former European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other officials with European nongovernmental organizations were barred from entering the U.S., in what was described as retaliation for “censorship” of U.S. tech platforms in Europe. In reality, it was the latest in a campaign to force the EU to withdraw two regulatory laws, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act, that U.S. tech firms don’t like. The laws require tech companies to take down illegal content on their platforms, restrict the transfer of user data to multiple platforms run by the same companies, refrain from “steering” users toward their own products, and allow for fair competition in app stores and interoperable social media sites.

The travel ban was only the latest in the Trump administration’s special pleading for Big Tech, using threatened tariffs and leverage in trade deals to try to force changes to the EU’s sovereign laws. European leaders cried foul, claiming that the travel ban was an act of intimidation attempting to damage the EU’s regulatory autonomy. But within weeks, the intimidation appeared to have worked. A new European Commission rule called the Digital Networks Act, which will regulate telecom infrastructure, will subject U.S. tech firms to “a voluntary framework rather than binding rules,” according to Reuters. Add to that the EU’s plans to overhaul its signature digital rules in a more tech-friendly direction, and largely stop artificial intelligence regulation. All in all, Brussels is stepping back on tech regulation, under intense pressure from the U.S.

A series of foreign governments have climbed down on digital regulations, taxes, and other restrictions in the year since Donald Trump returned to office. When Big Tech cozied up to Trump, it found its most powerful lobbyist, someone eager to bully countries into submission, through investigations or tariff threats or in this case travel bans, to allow the industry to operate more freely abroad. And now, industry leaders are asking for even more. In an analysis shared exclusively with the Prospect, Public Citizen has mapped Big Tech lobbyist demands in public comments for the National Trade Estimate, an annual report that lists alleged “non-tariff trade barriers” from other countries. This report is an annual lobbyist free-for-all, a way for them to get on the government radar laws in other countries that they would like to see eliminated.



The trade groups are now objecting to hundreds of laws in close to 65 different jurisdictions around the world, a significant escalation in demands over the previous year. “The broad idea is to deregulate the tech ecosystem as much as possible, to match the U.S. deregulatory state in other countries,” said Melanie Foley, deputy director for Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. Melinda St. Louis, director of Global Trade Watch, noted that the Trump administration is exhibiting the same kind of behavior abroad on behalf of Big Tech as they are at home, where the president recently issued an executive order to attempt to preempt state regulations on artificial intelligence. “He has really followed through for Big Tech from what we’ve seen,” St. Louis said. While many of the bilateral trade agreements Trump has made with foreign countries in the mad rush to replace tariffs have been kept secret, what we do know is that a number of tax and regulatory policies around the world are being watered down or excised at the request of the U.S.

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