Le Grand Continent - After the Paris AI Summit, the Union must not fall into Trump's trap
Senior EU Fellow Cori Crider expressed how after the AI summit in Paris, Europe must avoid succumbing to Trump's influence and should assert its independence, rejecting appeasement toward the US and Big Tech, which threaten its political and economic sovereignty.
In the rainforest, some trees have an astonishing ability: their external, aerial roots “strangle” the thick tree trunks to reach the light more quickly. Like these proliferating species, Big Tech has invaded and taken possession of the body politic of its American host. A few days after Trump’s inauguration , Elon Musk managed to take over the US Treasury’s payment systems , freeze funds and purge federal employees, and impose that certain official announcements of an urgent nature must be sent via X, the private social network he owns.
It doesn't matter that the richest man in the world was neither elected by the people nor confirmed by the Senate. It doesn't matter that the American Constitution gives Congress, not the White House, the power to vote on the budget.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its very junior employees have seized the tax and financial information of millions of Americans and gotten their hands on the levers of a payments system worth more than $6 trillion. Social Security; Medicare; debt — even for Musk, this war booty is colossal.
The burning question on the sidelines of the Paris AI Summit this week was how Europe would respond as Trump fired the opening salvos of a trade war by targeting Canada and Mexico with threats of tariffs — while warning of potential retaliation against the bloc’s digital regulatory agenda.
Spaniard Pedro Sanchez is one of the few to have denounced the role of Big Tech in the weakening of democracy. Most other European leaders — hoping to avoid a direct economic confrontation — have hesitated to challenge this dangerous merger between Donald Trump’s White House and Elon Musk’s Silicon Valley .
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