EU lawmakers try to counter tech bros’ Washington lobbying

European Union politicians who helped shape the bloc’s crackdown on Big Tech are trying to sway United States policymakers who've been listening to tech bros like X’s Elon Musk and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.

They faced an uphill battle as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration took aim at EU rules on online content moderation and digital competition, saying these amount to government censorship and unfairly target American companies. Trump even threatened tariffs to fight back against foreign fines or restrictions on U.S. tech giants.

Sandro Gozi, one of a group of EU lawmakers who went to Washington last week, said they’re fighting back against views on the EU that are more of “a Mar-a-Lago boys’ issue” and “fueled by Big Tech, starting with Elon Musk.”

Anna Cavazzini, a German Green lawmaker who heads the European Parliament’s internal market committee, took the cross-party group to Washington from Feb. 24-28 to talk to U.S. officials and members of Congress just as transatlantic trade tensions are heating up.

“We have witnessed aggressive communication by US lawmakers and the Trump administration targeting our tech regulation,” Cavazzini said in a statement. The attacks on EU laws “are far from representative of the views of the majority” of the tech industry and represent “only those of powerful tech giants in Silicon Valley,” she said.

Cavazzini said the lawmakers managed to meet four members of Congress: Republicans Jim Jordan, Mark Green and Scott Fitzgerald, and Democrat Don Beyer. They tried to explain what the EU’s Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act and Artificial Intelligence Act are trying to achieve in terms of setting up guardrails as tech giants expand their services.

That didn’t always go as hoped.

Shortly after exiting a meeting with Jordan, POLITICO published a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen informing her of his demand to have tech firms send him their correspondence with EU officials on how they have to comply with “censorship regimes.”

Freedom of speech is a hot-button issue for Trump and his followers, who see EU efforts to curb online disinformation as excessive. Meta’s Zuckerberg reacted in January by ending a fact-checking program in the U.S. to restore “free expression on our platforms.”

The EU’s response to attacks on its laws has so far been limited, with tech chief Henna Virkkunen saying Zuckerberg's comments on EU censorship were misleading.

Gozi said Jordan's letter was “aggressive, and they are wrong” — but just “because they are aggressive, doesn’t mean we need to be aggressive too.”

“We need to be firm,” he said.“We told them to pay attention that these guys are the ones who a few years ago were saying how wonderful the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act were.”

Spanish center-right lawmaker Pablo Arias Echeverría said U.S. officials they met with weren't fully familiar with the EU regulations.

“They stayed on the surface and did not go into detail,” he said. “Their message, always the same, was about the DSA being against free speech. About the DMA that is designed against American business. And about the AI Act slowing down innovation.”

The EU politicians also met with the White House’s AI and crypto czar David Sacks; Lynne Parker, who is the principal deputy director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy; and officials from the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.

Arias Echeverría warned about how souring of U.S. and EU ties risks a wider shift in Europe that could benefit other global rivals, such as China.

“We have conveyed … that if there is a rise in prices due to tariffs, that there may be a perception of a change of direction,” he said. “It is not a very big wave, but it can permeate society if there is a trade war."