As German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visits Washington next month, U.S. policymakers should take the opportunity to address a troubling trend: Germany’s increasing use of discriminatory regulations, censorship rules and taxes aimed squarely at American technology companies.
To start, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office recently fined Amazon and imposed a remedy that will effectively force Amazon to promote uncompetitive prices to customers in Germany. The action was taken under Germany’s expanded digital competition regime, a law modeled on the European Union’s Digital Markets Act. Like the DMA, Germany’s framework relies on arbitrary thresholds to single out large, globally successful American firms while granting regulators sweeping authority to impose forward-looking obligations and massive fines without demonstrable findings of consumer harm.
Germany is also moving forward with an 8% investment mandate targeting American streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. The proposal would force U.S. streamers to invest 8% of their German revenue into local productions. In effect, Berlin is disregarding existing investments in the country and compelling American companies to subsidize the government’s selected domestic content.
At the same time, Germany’s Cultural Minister has proposed a digital tax of up to 10% on large online services that use media or cultural content, another measure that will disproportionately impact U.S. firms. We have seen this playbook before: define “large platforms” and set thresholds in a manner which captures American innovators and frame the policy as “fairness” or sovereignty.
These economic measures are unfolding alongside a broader push for expanded government control over online speech. Merz’s party has endorsed new social media restrictions that would increase state authority over online speech. Yet recent findings from the U.S. House Judiciary Committee show that European Commission officials previously pressured platforms to remove lawful speech during election periods, raising serious concerns about political influence over online discourse. Expanding government power over online speech enables political actors to shape the terms of public discourse and debate.
Taken together, these actions represent a perverse pattern. Germany is increasingly using competition law, sector-specific mandates and targeted taxation to burden U.S. technology companies while sparing European competitors. That approach risks undermining transatlantic economic cooperation at a moment when democratic nations should be aligned in competing with state-backed Chinese firms and defending democratic values and open markets.
As Chancellor Merz meets with U.S. officials, the Administration and Congress should raise these concerns directly and engage the U.S. Trade Representative Office, State Department and Commerce Department to review whether Germany’s measures violate trade commitments. American tech leadership is a key strategic asset. The United States should not accept discriminatory digital regulation as the price of doing business in Europe.
A strong transatlantic partnership requires a level playing field. Germany should choose partnership over protectionism.
Image via Unsplash.