Non-Tariff Attacks

Join ITIF for a webinar on why global-turnover-based fines are disproportionate, what more targeted and proportionate enforcement could look like, and how U.S. policymakers should respond.

The Trump administration has launched sweeping Section 301 investigations into foreign manufacturing overcapacity, but discriminatory digital regulations pose an equally serious threat to U.S. commerce and warrant the same enforcement response.

A government backed push to replace U.S. payment networks in Europe is less about consumer benefit and more about reducing reliance on American firms, risking economic harm to the U.S. and opening the door for Chinese competitors in a fragmented market.

Congress is shifting from rhetoric to enforcement, treating Canada’s Online Streaming Act as a test case for using Section 301 to counter digital policies that extract revenue from U.S. firms while shielding domestic competitors. The move signals a broader strategy to confront a growing wave of non tariff attacks that distort markets and erode U.S. technological competitiveness.

Growing tensions between the United States and Europe over digital trade and technology regulation risk weakening the transatlantic alliance at a time of intensifying competition with China. Washington sees European rules as disproportionately targeting U.S. firms, while Europe views them as necessary to reduce dependence on American technology. Unless both sides address these differing threat perceptions and pursue regulatory compatibility, fragmentation could undermine their ability to shape global technology rules and allow China to fill the gap.

The European Commission is challenging Meta’s decision to restrict third party AI assistants on WhatsApp, arguing it may violate competition rules. The argument here is that forcing Meta to open its platform would undermine its vertically integrated AI model, weaken incentives for continued investment, and introduce security and operational risks. At a critical moment in global AI competition, such regulatory actions could slow innovation at a leading American firm and advantage foreign competitors.

Joseph V. Coniglio hosts the second episode of a new antitrust speaker series and interviews Alden Abbott, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and an advisory board member of the Antitrust Education Project.​ They discuss antitrust’s Chicago Revolution, Neo-Brandeisian enforcement, and the Google & Meta cases.

Global trade is evolving into a form of mercantilist economic warfare where foreign nations use discriminatory regulations to target the U.S. tech sector, draining its wealth and undermining American innovation.

The House Judiciary Committee has launched an investigation into South Korea's discriminatory targeting of U.S. tech companies, particularly Coupang, marking an important escalation in Washington's pushback against non-tariff attacks that use regulatory measures to weaken American technology leadership. These attacks—which have cost U.S. tech companies over $30 billion globally in the past decade—disproportionately target American firms through fines, operational restrictions, and forced infrastructure investments while creating openings for Chinese competitors.

The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) imposes the heaviest regulatory burdens on large platforms in a way that overwhelmingly targets U.S. technology companies, exposing them to disproportionate compliance costs and fines while largely sparing European firms. This discriminatory model functions as a non-tariff attack that risks weakening U.S. innovation and competitiveness, and is now being replicated globally, amplifying the strategic challenge for American tech leadership.