The Return of the Musk-Trump Alliance

How the White House is Wielding its Diplomatic Power to Defend Big Tech Profits

Presented as a defence of free speech, the Trump administration’s visa sanctions on European regulators shield tech platforms from accountability and send a chilling signal to attempts at democratic regulation abroad, writes Caroline Orr Bueno

When the Trump Administration recently announced visa sanctions against five Europeans involved in anti-hate and anti-disinformation work, the move was presented as a defence of the First Amendment in the face of alleged censorship by EU bureaucrats.

The more consequential story, however, is not about free speech but about money and power: who gets to regulate global tech platforms, who bears the cost of online harm, and who wins and loses when the United States takes sides in the global fight over tech regulation.

The beneficiaries of the unprecedented sanctions are not ordinary Americans, whose voices were supposedly silenced. Instead, they are the same US tech companies and billionaire executives who have spent years lobbying against the EU’s Digital Services Act, donating to Trump-aligned political causes, and promoting a narrative that equates platform accountability with censorship.