First Trump officials were trying to get Europe to accept chlorinated chickens and hormone-infused beef from the United States. Now, it seems they are trying to foist the toxicity of our social media platforms and a laissez-faire approach to harmful content onto Europe, as well.
Evidence suggests the Trump administration is targeting content moderation laws in the United Kingdom designed to curb hate speech and misinformation as a part of trade negotiations.
Last week, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer acknowledged to Parliament that “a review of online safety rules [is] on the table in trade talks with the United States,” Politico EU reported. When asked about whether top tech firms might be powerful enough to be treated as independent nations, Starmer hedged and pivoted to points about “the appropriate way to tax digital services” and “how technology impacts with free speech.” (Below is a video of the exchange posted by a member of Parliament, Chi Onwurah.)
Starmer’s comments seem to suggest that U.K. laws against hate speech and disinformation have become a factor in trade negotiations with Trump, who is destabilizing the U.S. economy with a haphazard tariff war that has targeted American allies, such as the U.K.
Starmer’s comments also followed a recent report by The New York Times that said European Union officials have weighed enforcement of content moderation laws against Elon Musk and his social platform, X, against the risks of angering the Trump administration amid ongoing trade negotiations.
Trump’s administration has been known to rely on hateful rhetoric and disinformation, so its open criticism of European officials’ punishment of such speech in their countries hasn’t come as a surprise. Vice President JD Vance, for example, recently framed European laws targeting misinformation as an attack on free speech at a conference in Munich.
After the Times’ report on the E.U., I explained why European countries are justified in their efforts to curb the spread of disinformation and hate speech, particularly when it comes to Musk, who has remade X into a platform for promoting far-right propaganda. Meanwhile, a loud chorus of activist groups in Europe is encouraging officials to resist the Trump administration’s demands when it comes to content moderation.
Americans should be disturbed by the administration’s apparent doggedness in making stable economic relations with a top ally at all contingent on giving greater latitude to hate speech and disinformation in its online discourse. Were we a country led by sensible people, we would be crafting our own policies to deter hate speech and misinformation online, not pressuring allies to weaken theirs.