[!NOTE]
This article summarizes the available information regarding the developments as of April 2025.
It aims to provide an overview of the situation based on credible and verifiable sources at that time.
Details and circumstances may have evolved since publication, and readers are encouraged to consult updated information where applicable.
President Trump has imposed a 20% tariff on EU imports and 25% on automobiles imports from the EU and announced plans for additional tariffs on certain other goods. Germany, heavily reliant on exports, is feeling the immediate impact. Markets reacted swiftly, with the DAX and other indices taking a hit. While headlines focus on the car industry, the more pressing issue is structural: Europe’s dependence on foreign tech infrastructure.
Europe doesn’t own the digital stack. According to the European Commission, The vast majority of Europe’s cloud infrastructure still depends on non-EU providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. This puts critical infrastructure, startups, and even government systems in a precarious position — subject to foreign policy, foreign regulation, and foreign outages.
In response, the EU is considering countermeasures against U.S. tech giants, including a broader digital services tax and restrictions on platform operations. But with no strong European alternatives, these threats are more symbolic than strategic.
There are efforts to turn the tide. The Digital Europe Programme has earmarked €1.3 billion for building up regional capabilities in AI, data, and cloud. Projects like Gaia-X aim to create a federated cloud system built on European values of openness, transparency, and data sovereignty — but adoption is slow, and tech maturity lags behind.
Trade wars reveal dependencies. Europe may still dominate in cars and industrial equipment, but when it comes to compute, data, and software, we’re renters. That needs to change.
This isn’t about politics — it’s about resilience.
No one wins a trade war. But you lose faster when you don’t control your tools.
Cheers!