A Provocative U.S. Challenge to the EU for a Tech Reset
By Paul Steidler: In a powerful, riveting, and at times emotional speech today, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg urged the European Union to make fundamental economic reforms regarding its tech and AI policies. This is not the typical speech EU officials are used to hearing from U.S. officials, and it comes at a critical time, when breaking the logjam of the EU’s attacks on U.S. tech companies is increasingly in both parties’ best interest.
Under Secretary Helberg emphasized that the U.S. wants Europe to succeed technologically and economically. He began by discussing that he grew up in Europe for 18 years and that his mother worked for the European Commission, the EU’s governing body. She took pride in that work and knew “she was part of something historic.”
The speech is the latest development in which Helberg and the Trump Administration have been pushing the EU to make a tech reset. A January report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Artificial Intelligence and the Great Divergence, discussed how Europe will be left even further behind economically if it continues to shun AI.
In a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed on March 23, “The EU Trips Itself Up in the AI Race,” Helberg made the case that the EU was at a crossroads for ending stifling tech regulation and welcoming outside AI investment. “Europe can join the U.S. and other AI-first economies, or it can continue regulating its way into irrelevance,” he concluded.
In the speech, Helberg urged the EU to adopt the recommendations of its Draghi report and its call for widespread deregulation. He also slammed the EU for its arbitrary and capricious laws, such as the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, which are targeted at U.S. companies but do more harm to Europe.
“Every billion dollars in penalties broadcast the same signal to every investor and capital allocator on earth: this continent is hostile to foreign investment … The fine was on American companies. The price was paid by European workers.”
Furthermore, the European Commission has in place, “a Caligulan bureaucracy that has, regulation by regulation, arrogated more power away from sovereign European states – not liberating the European economy, but strangulating it.”
An especially powerful point of the speech was when Helberg spoke of his father being seriously ill and not wanting to face it. He drew an analogy between this situation, the U.S.-European relationship, and his father’s denial.
“You can join them in their denial – keep things comfortable, tell them everything will be fine. And it feels like kindness. But it’s really abandonment.”
The U.S. does not want to abandon Europe, but rather, “to work together on AI, on advanced manufacturing, on supply chain security. A strong Europe is a stronger West. A stronger West is a more stable, more prosperous, more free world.”
The 36-year-old Helberg also knows U.S. tech well. Before his government service, he was a Senior Adviser to the CEO of Palantir Technologies. In addition, he founded The Hill & Valley Forum, which soon became a major force in bridging the knowledge gap between Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill.
Through this speech and related actions, he has made a strong case that the EU should build tech bridges with the U.S., so that both will benefit.