The Department of Justice (DOJ) is swinging hard at Google, pushing to force the sale of Chrome or even divest Android in the remedies phase of their headline antitrust case against the company. These moves are not just an example of government overreach; they mirror the very approach the EU has taken under their Digital Markets Act (DMA), a policy the White House has rightly blasted as “extortion” of U.S. tech companies.
The EU’s DMA is a blatant attack on U.S. tech, designed to prop up European competitors at America’s expense. Earlier this month, the EU slapped Apple and Meta with €500M and €200M fines for allegedly breaching the law, despite going through several rounds of compliance changes. Under the incredibly subjective justification of ensuring “fair competition,” the EU’s DMA forces companies to share proprietary data with rivals and bans self-preferencing—like Google Search showing a Google Maps preview at the top of results for a query about local Italian restaurants.
In reality, Europe’s DMA isn’t about fairness—it’s anti-American and anti-free markets.
Its rules burden U.S. firms with compliance costs, diverting resources from innovation to legal battles and crazy fines. It’s a central planning tactic that stifles the free market, and ignores consumer choice.
For example, when the EU forced Google to offer a browser choice screen in 2018, consumers still picked Google 92% of the time. Consumers don’t need big government trying to micromanage how tech products work—and interventions like the DMA show that when bureaucrats get involved, consumers lose.
President Trump has been appropriately fierce in his opposition to the DMA, recognizing it as a direct threat to American tech dominance. In February, the White House issued a fact sheet explicitly calling out the law. His Deputy National Security Advisor Brian Hughes also characterized the DMA as an “extraterritorial regulation” being used to extort the U.S., and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Andrew Ferguson recently called the DMA a “tax on American firms.”
Concerningly, the DOJ’s proposed remedies against Google align with the DMA’s anti-capitalist playbook. Both are obsessed with “contestability”—the idea of focusing on how easy the market is for the government’s preferred competitors, rather than the consumers they’re meant to serve, even if it means punishing success and disabling helpful tools. While the DMA forces data sharing, like requiring Meta to share user data with rivals, the DOJ wants Google to share its search index with competitors like OpenAI—a market leader and $300 billion firm. Similarly, the DOJ’s push for pop-ups to switch search engines echoes the DMA’s intrusive choice screens, prioritizing competitors over user experience.
This isn’t about consumer welfare, the traditional heart of U.S. antitrust law. It’s about propping up preferred rivals at the expense of innovation. Forcing Google to sell Chrome or divest Android risks dismantling services consumers love.
The DMA’s compliance burdens have already slowed U.S. tech innovation in Europe; the DOJ’s moves threaten to do the same at home, handing advantages to foreign competitors.
Trump’s mission is clear: keep America’s tech sector leading the world. But the DOJ’s European approach in its desired remedies against Google undercuts his leverage. How can the administration call out the EU for targeting U.S. tech when our own regulators are doing the same? This contradiction makes it harder to fight foreign powers on contemporary trade barriers, weakening America’s position in global tech and national security.
The DOJ must ditch this anti-American, European-inspired approach and realign with President Trump’s vision: fostering innovation, not punishing success. Antitrust should protect consumers, not hand out government-orchestrated wins to competitors. America’s tech leadership—and Trump’s global fight—depends on it.