Imagine a world where credit cards are no longer accepted, Amazon accounts are closed, and working with American technology companies is no longer an option. It's nearly impossible to shop online, send wire transfers to family overseas, or rely on anything related to the United States, including U.S. dollars.
For some Canadians, this is the reality right now.
Last year, the Trump administration added International Criminal Court judge Kimberly Prost to its economic sanctions list. She served as an appellate judge who in 2020 unanimously authorized the ICC prosecutor to investigate alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan since 2003, including those involving U.S. military personnel. The United States is not a member of the ICC and does not recognize its authority. Several other ICC judges and prosecutors have also been sanctioned by the Trump administration.
Mr Prost, who now ranks with the world's most dangerous people from terrorists to North Korean hackers and Iranian spies, said in an interview with The Irish Times that he had found the impact of sanctions on his life to be “numbing”.
This high-profile incident provides a glimpse into the impact that being cut off from the United States has on people's daily lives. Lawmakers and government leaders across Europe are increasingly aware of the pressing threats they face at home and their overreliance on American technology.
President Trump's diplomatic escalation and upending of international norms, including the detention of foreign leaders and threats of invasion against NATO and European allies, has led some EU countries to consider distancing themselves from American technology and reclaiming their digital sovereignty. This shift in thinking comes as the Trump administration has become increasingly unpredictable and vindictive.
In Belgium, Miguel de Bruycker, the country's cybersecurity chief, admitted in a recent interview that Europe has “lost the internet” to the United States, which has hoarded much of the world's technological and financial systems. De Brucker said it was “currently impossible” to fully store data in Europe as a result of the United States' dominance of digital infrastructure, and called on the European Union to strengthen technology across the region.
On January 22, the European Parliament voted to adopt a report instructing the European Commission to identify areas where the EU can reduce its dependence on foreign providers. Parliamentarians said the European Union and its 27 member states depend on non-EU countries for more than 80% of digital goods, services and infrastructure. The vote, which was not binding, came at a time when the European Commission is trying to bring more technologies and dependencies into its territory.
The French government announced on Tuesday that it will replace Zoom and Microsoft Teams with domestic video conferencing software Visio, according to David Amiel, France's Minister for Civil Service and National Reform.
Concerns about digital sovereignty are not new, going back at least several decades, dating back to 2001, when the United States introduced the Patriot Act in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Patriot Act allowed U.S. intelligence agencies to surveil the world in ways never before allowed, including spying on the communications of citizens of Europe's closest allies, despite the EU's strict data protection and privacy rules.
Years later, in 2011, Microsoft acknowledged that, as an American tech company, it could be forced to hand over data of Europeans in response to a secret US government order. It wasn't until 2013 that much of this surveillance was revealed in classified documents leaked by then-NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
At the consumer level, there is also a concerted push to encourage users to switch away from US tech providers and technologies, and tech company employees are calling on their CEOs to speak out against the growing brutality of US federal immigration agents.
Independent journalist Paris Marx has published a guide to breaking away from US tech services, while other websites such as Switch-to-EU and European Alternatives encourage users to use alternatives to Big Tech products and services, such as open source tools.