Washington is launching a crusade against the GDPR

The Trump administration is opening a new front in its regulatory battle with several major digital powers. According to information revealed by Reuters, US diplomats have been instructed to actively oppose foreign laws governing data management by American companies. Behind this directive lies a clearly identified target: so-called "data sovereignty" regulations, which mandate local data storage or restrict cross-border transfers. A strategy that puts Washington in direct confrontation with the European Union and other major economies…

The GDPR and data localization in the crosshairs

In a diplomatic cable signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, data localization laws are described as “unnecessarily restrictive.” The text explicitly cites the GDPR as an example of a regulatory framework that imposes excessive requirements on cross-border flows.

Adopted in May 2018, the GDPR strictly regulates the transfer of personal data of European citizens to third countries. It has led to several financial sanctions against American giants such as Google in 2020, and more recently Meta in 2023. According to the State Department, these rules risk disrupting global data flows, increasing operational costs, and limiting cloud and artificial intelligence services. This argument reflects an American vision of a web based on the free flow of data, considered a driver of growth and innovation. Furthermore, the pressure is not only directed at Europe, as India, Brazil, Australia, and Indonesia have recently strengthened their requirements for local data hosting. These are all strategic markets for American cloud providers and SaaS publishers.

A geopolitical battle over AI and the cloud

This initiative comes at a particularly sensitive time, as the European Union has just adopted the AI Act, which imposes a strict framework on the use and processing of data by AI. However, these models rely on massive volumes of data, often collected internationally.

For players like Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud, the issue of data residency has become a key selling point. Indeed, local infrastructures have been deployed specifically to meet the sovereignty requirements of states and public administrations.

However, the American directive could weaken this balance, because while some see it as a way to ease the constraints on American companies, others fear a regulatory escalation. In Europe, data protection is presented as a fundamental right, difficult to negotiate under diplomatic pressure.

And after the entry into force of the DSA, already criticized by Washington, data regulation is becoming the new battleground. For technology companies operating internationally, regulatory uncertainty is intensifying, and with it, the risk of a lasting fragmentation of the global web…