Instead of applying the biblical ‘eye for an eye’ approach, a more effective response to US tariffs would be to open up new markets and, above all, free ourselves from our technological dependence on Big Tech by Andrea Monti – Originally published in Italian on Italian Tech
The need to respond to the tariffs imposed by the United States without triggering a trade war with uncertain long-term outcomes and, in the immediate term, with serious consequences for the industry of Member States is a problem that makes squaring the circle seem like a weekly puzzle in an amateur puzzle magazine.
The choice of ‘counter-tariffs’, which, as expressly stated by the President of the European Commission, are retaliatory in nature, does not appear very reasonable.
The negative consequences of such a choice would not affect the EU (which is not a state and therefore does not have its own economy) but its individual members. However, each state has its own national interests to protect, which are not necessarily consistent with those of the EU. This is particularly true of the idea of imposing tariffs on Big Tech products and services, a choice that is back on the list of options, but which could trigger a dangerous further deterioration in relations between the two sides of the Atlantic.
There are no quick fixes to complex problems
In a historical period dominated by the urgency of making decisions in the time it takes to tweet, it does not seem very sensible to give in to the irrational belief that the effects of hastily made political choices will manifest themselves just as quickly.
Instead, it would seem more reasonable to think about systemic solutions, acknowledging that the US may no longer be a privileged technological and economic partner.
On the one hand, it is time to seriously support public research and companies in various Member States that have developed alternative products and services to those of Big Tech. On the other hand, we need to rationalise the fact that what was once considered the ‘third world’ — the Indo-Pacific region — and what is now emerging from it — Africa — represent a huge market that has every interest in developing trade relations with European countries.
Support open source and establish new and stable technological relationships
This observation supports two lines of action. The first, on the domestic front, could legislate the use of open source technologies in relations with the public administration(as the US did with TCP/IP) and accelerate the replacement of US technology platforms with tools developed by European universities and companies.
The second, on the external front, could establish structural relations with those ‘emerging’ countries — and with those that have already emerged — which in the long term would translate into a diversification of interlocutors. This would make it possible to balance the consequences, even unexpected ones, of regime change and shifts in the geopolitical balance.
None of this is happening in the EU, as two examples above all demonstrate: why has the EU not supported the creation of a European operating system, perhaps based on Linux? And why is the EU absent from the RiscV Initiative, choosing not to participate in the creation of high-performance, open and intellectual and industrial property-free processor architectures? Simply taking action in these directions, which would not require ad hoc investments, would trigger structural changes in the European technology market and in services to citizens. But that is not the case.
The problematic aspects
Like all strategies, to paraphrase General von Moltke, these too would not stand up to reality. There are cultural limitations in the way the EU works that have created obstacles and inertia in the development of technological autonomy. There are historical delays that have allowed other powers to establish (de facto or de jure) privileged relationships with other parts of the world. But in today’s context, we cannot continue to cry over spilt digital milk, and we need to take bold steps (which means intelligent, not unnecessarily aggressive).
Utopian? Impossible? Difficult? Complicated?
It can be done!
If Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House has had one merit, it is that it has shown that things can change (for better or for worse, that is not the point) overnight, provided you have clear ideas and the determination to translate them into action. This is exactly what the EU has never had, at least in relation to policies for the development of information technology.