The United States has decided to punish with visas what it has not been able to stop with arguments. Donald Trump’s Administration has banned five European citizens from entering the country, including Thierry Breton, former European Commissioner for the Internal Market and one of the main architects of Washington, thus turning a regulatory dispute into a direct political retaliation against whoever it considers responsible for inconveniencing Silicon Valley.
The head of US diplomacy, Marco Rubio, has defended the measure with a speech without nuances. As stated in a statement, those sanctioned “have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize and suppress American opinions with which they disagree.” For the State Department, their entry or activity in the United States would have “potentially adverse consequences,” a formulation that justifies both the visa ban and the possibility of initiating deportation proceedings.
Breton has responded from the same digital trench that has made him a political target. In a message published in And he recalled an uncomfortable fact for Washington’s story: “90% of the European Parliament – our democratically elected body – and the 27 member states voted unanimously for the DSA.” His message to “my American friends” has gone directly to the core of the clash: “Censorship is not where you think.”
The veto is not limited to the former European commissioner. The Trump Administration has also blacklisted Imran Ahmed, executive director of the Center for Countering Digital Hate; Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon, from the German organization HateAid; and Clare Melford, co-founder of the Global Disinformation Index. Von Hodenberg and Ballon have denounced that the measure seeks to “hinder the application of European law to American companies operating in Europe” and have warned: “We will not be intimidated by a government that uses accusations of censorship to silence those who defend human rights and freedom of expression.” From the GDI, a spokesperson has described the veto as “immoral, illegal and un-American” and an “authoritarian attack on freedom of expression.”
The origin of the clash is found in the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European regulation that forces platforms such as X, Meta or TikTok to remove illegal content, combat disinformation and be accountable for their algorithms. Breton found himself at the center of the controversy after sending a letter to X’s owner, Elon Musk, reminding him of the platform’s legal obligations under the DSA. The gesture came hours before a live interview between Musk and Trump and preceded a fine of 130 million euros imposed by the European Commission on X for failing to comply with its transparency obligations.
For Washington, the DSA does not represent legitimate regulation, but rather an ideological threat. The Trump Administration has ordered its diplomats to build international opposition against this law and has raised the tone in its National Security Strategy, where it accuses European leaders of “censoring freedom of expression” and suppressing the debate on immigration, with the risk – according to the document – of a “civilizational erosion” of the continent. In this context, Rubio had already described the fine to X as “an attack on the American people by foreign governments.”
