As the Trump administration takes his country further from the norms US foreign policy (and no, I don’t include regime change in a Latin American country in that drift), Europe must increasingly prepare for a world in which the protection of America is replaced by protection from America. An essential component of this is moving away from dependence on US goods and services and, perhaps most essential of all, US tech and tech infrastructure.

Almost everything over here runs on US tech. Virtually every government, businesss, school, and any other institution you can think of depends on Microsoft Windows and Google’s Android. Many also depend on Microsoft’s cloud services, Google’s online services and ChromeOS, Amazon Web Services, Cloudflare, as well as the full range of US AI startups. Another key technology is web browsers, which are all almost entirely dependent on Google or Apple. Unlike fungible imports like oil, these services have high switching costs. IT switchovers can cost tens of millions of pounds/euros in large organisations, and take a long time, not to mention the R&D and engineering required to actually build the infrastructure out in the first place.

The security implications of being so dependent on a capricious United States are obvious. There are the implications for security of information, with US intelligence agencies potentially having easy access to critical European data. There’s also the possibility of denial of service, which could simply bring the continent’s entire IT infrastructure to a halt at the whim of an executive order.

The problem is Europe is far behind US tech in terms of capability. All the more reason to start as soon as possible. Am I saying European institutions should switch to Linux? Not necessarily, but Linux has the distinct advantages of a) already existing and b) being free.

A potential silver lining of Europe disentangling itself from US tech is the opportunity to embed social values and democratic oversight into the design of these systems. US tech firms are massive, centralised surveillance platforms that routinely abuse their users and reproduce existing social inequalities. We could do better via better regulation of the private sector, and more public sector options.

Big tech is a key asset of US imperialism. It makes other states dependent on the continued service of US companies. Any state that wants independence from the US needs an alternative. And unless we fancy handing our infrastructure over to China instead, European nations had better cooperate and get building.