this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2025
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Trump is back — and with him, the risk that the U.S. could unplug Europe from the digital world.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House is forcing Europe to reckon with a major digital vulnerability: The U.S. holds a kill switch over its internet.

As the U.S. administration raises the stakes in a geopolitical poker game that began when Trump started his trade war, Europeans are waking up to the fact that years of over-reliance on a handful of U.S. tech giants have given Washington a winning hand.

The fatal vulnerability is Europe’s near-total dependency on U.S. cloud providers.

Cloud computing is the lifeblood of the internet, powering everything from the emails we send and videos we stream to industrial data processing and government communications. Just three American behemoths — Amazon, Microsoft, and Google — hold more than two-thirds of the regional market, putting Europe’s online existence in the hands of firms cozying up to the U.S. president to fend off looming regulations and fines.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Just some stupid doom bait.

If it would get to cable cutting between US and Europe then we have much bigger problems than slow web apps. If Europe would ever get to that it definitely has enough cloud providers for essential services. Around 90% of all bandwidth is entertainment.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (4 children)

What does this mean, exactly? Sounds like "Trump could end Europe's internet access", but I'm sure wise Lemmy experts could chime in to clarify this means "Trump could disconnect Europe from the US, internet-wise", which tbh don't sound that bad. Sure hoping it's the latter

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Oh, yes please!

It would be disastrous at first, but Europe would recover much stronger than before.

We would have to do a lot to catch up but the seeds are there and they cannot grow because they are in the shadow of the US industry.

The US giants have money and userbase to outperform anything Europe has at the moment and when they cannot outperform some company, they buy it. If Trump ever tries to cut US Tech off, European companies would grow rapidly to fill the void.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

I would love to get some of these data centers off our power grid.

[–] [email protected] 115 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Misleading title. It's really about cloud services. And Europe is already working on making itself independent of American cloud services.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 days ago

Our own internet without Americans? Where do I sign up?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Oh but Europe can do something about it, it would only take a long time and be very costly.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

For one, servers running Amazon's ECS/EKS can switch to self-managed Kubernetes.

Even if Trump is bluffing as usual, European governments and local councils should get the hint that the tech hegemony Google Amazon Apple and Microsoft is going to be used as an arm of the US government.

Time to switch! Wololo

Richard stallman, Saint IGNUtias of the Church of Emacs

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Well. do it. We'll see.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Just three American behemoths — Amazon, Microsoft, and Google...

Do it! What are you waiting for? Do it!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Can we pull the plug on Trump already? I swear this timeline is a cruel joke.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

It’s purgatory

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

If we get tot get point Trump is cutting off the world's internet, I'd be more concerned about the nukes about to fly.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I hope this means people finally start to see the danger of centralization.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I mean, there are servers in European countries, couldn't they just nationalize the servers and continue as usual?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The servers would stop working the moment the US “pulls the plug.” Nationalization would not secure service, that would only secure non-functional hardware

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago (3 children)

The hardware is here. The entire hecking infrastructure is here. Making it work might not be as easy as flipping a switch, but it is definitely not impossible lol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

would probably take a month or two

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Ya ok but this isn't a doomsday thing, we used to build our own servers before and lots of people know how to do it still.

All AWS and the like do is remove the hardware for the consumer and add some APIs.

Doesn't sound as scary to me as the article paints. The only hard part would be the migration 😅

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (3 children)

If the USA switches off cloud services for the EU, that's a short-term problem. Really bad short term, but after a month or so everything is back up and running.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah. That's literally the whole point of "the cloud" it can be anywhere.

The EU has lots of places with available renewable energy.

Hook up a couple servers to some dams. With "free" electricity it'll be almost impossible to not end up being cheaper than Amazon in the long run.

Like, I'm struggling to see how this would be a bad thing long term. Relying on American corporations just isn't a rational choice anymore

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 days ago (5 children)

Hook up a couple servers to some dams.

As someone who works in IT, I love the optimism of making it sound this simple. Things that I expect to take 10 minutes can end up taking weeks, because there's always a surprising answer to "How complicated could it be?"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

"Oh, it wouldn't work the way we've thought because" is a phrase I've had to say too often for that level of optimism.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Wouldn't want to be that PM!

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 days ago (2 children)

All that would do is get Jeff Bezos to hire a hitman to take out Trump.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

I know an Italian guy who might be down

[–] [email protected] 44 points 5 days ago

I’m not hearing a problem here

[–] [email protected] 179 points 5 days ago (2 children)

This sounds a lot like, “build your own servers and topple another US industry.”

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 days ago (5 children)

Honestly, as an American living in Silicon Valley, I would be overjoyed if Europe became the primary kickstarter for open source alternatives to the existing US corporate infrastructure, that bends to the knees of the Federal government. Even here at home, myself and some of my co-workers aren't too keen on the existing status quo tools because there are too many caveats - from rent seeking subscriptions to the inability to verify if something is tampered with.

In the same way Valve saw how having all their eggs in the Windows basket led them to dive head first into linux development, I hope the EU's realization of the risks in the US tech sector lead it to developing unified, well funded OSS alternatives. I would certainly install them.

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Another short-term decision by America could lead to more long-term loss of wealth and influence.

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