{"id":161,"date":"2026-01-16T13:51:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T13:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/?p=161"},"modified":"2026-01-20T09:15:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T09:15:38","slug":"trumps-eu-foreign-policy-implicated-scholarship-and-the-brussels-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/2026\/01\/16\/trumps-eu-foreign-policy-implicated-scholarship-and-the-brussels-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s EU foreign policy, implicated scholarship and the \u2018Brussels Effect\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Uta Kohl<\/a>, 16 January 2026 —- 8 mins read<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Europe, the fierceness of the Trump administration\u2019s hostility to the EU<\/a> has come as a shock. It is unprecedented in scale and kind, and manifests itself in words (Vance\u2019s speech in Munich<\/a> attacking the EU over free speech and migration or Trump describing Europe as \u2018decaying\u2019 and its leaders as \u2018weak\u2019<\/a>) and actions ( halting military aid to Ukraine<\/a>, announcing 30% tariffs on the EU<\/a>, or threatening to take Greenland by force<\/a>). Yet, these hostilities do not come out of nowhere and build on a rise of transatlantic tensions over many US policy choices between 2000 -2024<\/a> and acceleration of those tensions over the last decade. Legal and international relations scholars have decried these developments as a breach of trust<\/a> or, in some cases, a of international law<\/a>. However, there appears to be little soul-searching about how we, as scholars, may be implicated in them. Whilst academia generally remains on the outskirts of day-to-day politics, we produce knowledge and narratives that create and shape discourses that have<\/em> an impact on politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Brussels Effect<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such popular academic narrative that has fed into the transatlantic hostilities is the \u2018Brussels Effect\u2019. The Brussels Effect was first coined by the Finnish-American scholar, Anu Bradford, in her article<\/a> (2012) and book<\/a> (2020) in which she purports to describe \u2018how the European Union rules the world\u2019. <\/em>Her thesis is simple, namely that the EU can set – and has set – global regulatory standards by virtue of being a large and attractive market for many importers from outside the EU and, then, by setting (strict) standards for these importers who often have an incentive to adopt them as their global baseline. This de facto <\/em>global harmonisation by corporate fiat is complemented by de jure<\/em> global harmonisation as the home states of these corporations decide to follow the EU regulatory lead and enact like laws in their jurisdictions. Thus there is a global convergence towards EU standards without the political difficulties and cost associated with harmonisation efforts following formal processes. Effectively, the EU gets harmonisation on the cheap. European data protection law is widely seen as an example par excellence<\/em> of the Brussels Effect as it has led to a widespread adoption of data protection laws around the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bradford\u2019s Brussels Effect has been hugely successful as a seemingly objective and neutral synthesis of facts describing EU regulatory hyperactivity with extraterritorial effect. For the digital world, this seems particularly true considering the recent raft of EU legal instruments<\/a> dealing with online platforms, such as Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act and the AI Act. There are many more (including corporate sustainability measures), and all of them have exterritorial reach as they apply to foreign providers that operate in the EU. The Brussels Effect has been referenced by thousands of scholars and taken up by EU policy makers and politicians with gusto, often as a badge of pride and honour<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, there is more to the Brussels Effect than meets the eye. For a start, it is not simply a description of facts about EU regulation but a meta-narrative that puts a particular perspective or spin on facts. Meta-narratives are stories about stories, which explain, tie together, and legitimise or delegitimise smaller facts and events, and appeal as much to the emotions as they do to the intellect. Bradford\u2019s article starts off by appealing to the sensitivities of the average American: \u2018EU regulations have a tangible impact on the everyday lives of citizens around the world. Few Americans are aware that EU regulations determine the makeup they apply in the morning, the cereal they eat for breakfast, the software they use on their computer, and the privacy settings they adjust on their Facebook page. And that\u2019s just before 8:30 AM.\u2019(3)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The particular perspective of the Brussels Effect narrative is one of EU regulatory overreach. This charge is already implicit in the title of Bradford\u2019s book: How the European Union Rules the World. <\/em>Implicit in her argument is the question: Why should Europe rule the world? Centuries of European imperialism, including legal imperialism<\/a>, are bygone and, if not, should be. Brussels should be ashamed of itself. By the same token, if the Brussels Effect narrative offers a legitimate critique of excessive EU law, then the Trump administration\u2019s opposition to EU regulation of US platforms<\/a> also strikes a legitimate chord. In that case, the large platforms may also be right in characterising the fines by the Commission under EU platforms regulations as \u2018protectionist\u2019, \u2018discriminatory\u2019 or  \u2018disguised tariffs\u2019 or as \u2018censorship\u2019. <\/a> Yet, does the EU really<\/em> rule the world? Unlikely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are indeed good reasons why the Brussels Effect narrative is not plausible. Here are three. First,<\/em> EU (digital) regulation seeks to regulate the European single market and must necessarily apply to foreign providers who do business in Europe. This is a standard jurisdictional approach adopted across the globe as it rightly protects local standards from being undermined by foreign providers. Second,<\/em> when foreign corporations, like the US digital platforms, adopt European standards as their global baseline, this is a commercial decision driven by market forces. The EU cannot \u2018choose\u2019 this as a route to global harmonisation, but as a form of bottom-up harmonisation it can lend support and legitimacy to political harmonisation. Such market forces come and go, wholly outside the EU\u2019s power. Third,<\/em> whilst according to Bradford\u2019s Brussels Effect the EU imposes its preference for \u2018strict rules\u2019 on \u2018the rest of world\u2019 (citing almost exclusively US examples), arguably the US and not the EU is the outlier in its preference for laissez-faire<\/em> law, especially in respect of the tech platforms. Already in 2005, Frederick Schauer<\/a> observed that the absolutist speech protection of the First Amendment was the odd one out internationally: \u2018On a large number of other issues in which the preferences of individuals may be in tension with the needs of the collective, the United States, increasingly alone.\u2019 Thus, it is far more plausible that EU regulations are simply more aligned with the public policies and interests of other jurisdictions than US laissez-faire<\/em> law is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Washington Effect<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Brussels Effect narrative paints a skewed picture of EU regulatory activism, it may be more compelling to understand EU regulations through the counter-narrative of the \u2018Washington Effect\u2019. A counter-narrative uses the same facts but tells a different story. In this case the story is that EU platform regulation is not an offensive extraterritorial strategy for Europe to attain global \u2018superpower\u2019 status, but rather a defensive territorial one that seeks to counter, in Europe, the hegemony of US platforms and US laissez-faire<\/em> law. In other words, the EU is in pursuit of reclaiming digital sovereignty and perhaps even leads the global resistance to US<\/em> legal imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The counter-narrative of the Washington Effect builds on the idea that deregulation is not nothing or neutral, but a form of regulation whereby existing legal standards are abandoned or watered down. It may occur within a jurisdiction through explicit deregulatory measures or across jurisdictions when the more permissive laws of one State undermine the more restrictive laws of another. Although deregulation appears to facilitate the \u2018free\u2019 market – free from state interference – even a free market is enabled by the general law of the land, such as contract and property law, corporation law, basic rules on fair competition, product liability or negligence law. Thus deregulation that meddles with these fundamental enabling market rules constitutes a significant regulatory intervention with the market, rather than a non-intervention. Such deregulatory interventions reconstitute the market and its distribution of rights, privileges, powers and authorities. In other words, deregulation also regulates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is plenty of evidence of the de facto <\/em>or de jure<\/em> imposition of US deregulation on \u2018the rest of the world\u2019. Most notably, section 230 Communications Decency Act (1996) which immunises platforms from liability (under the ordinary law of the land) for wrongful publications by third parties on their domains, is one such piece of deregulation that the US has successfully exported to more than 60 jurisdictions worldwide<\/a> with an enormous effect on global networked space. Equally, a de facto<\/em> Washington Effect occurred when US digital platforms – \u2018socialised\u2019 through US permissive laws, most notably US First Amendment jurisprudence \u2013 started to offer their services in Europe and elsewhere with minimal legal restraints built into their content distribution and ad revenue systems and when this starting position went unchallenged in Europe for decades. So perhaps it is the Washington Effect, not the Brussel Effect, that really shows who rules the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moral of the story<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Academic scholarship matters. It tells stories. The Brussels Effect is a story that has mattered. Its effects have been significant. It has lent credence to the Trump administration\u2019s opposition to EU tech regulation. It has then put the EU on a regulatory backfoot<\/a> and, at the same time, disguised quite how successfully Washington has exported its deregulatory regulation to the rest of the world. The Brussels Effect demonstrates that just because a narrative has intuitive appeal and in fact appeals to many, does not mean it\u2019s a good story. This is a dangerous one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a more in-depth analysis of the topic, see Uta Kohl, \u2018The Politics of the \u2018Brussels Effect\u2019 Narrative\u2019<\/a>, forthcoming <\/em>in ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE: PLATFORM REGULATION IN THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE (A. Koltay, R. Krotoszynski, B. T\u00f6r\u00f6k, E. Laidlaw (eds), OUP, 2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Uta Kohl, 16 January 2026 —- 8 mins read For Europe, the fierceness of the Trump administration\u2019s hostility to the EU has come as a shock. It is unprecedented in scale and kind, and manifests itself in words (Vance\u2019s speech in Munich attacking the EU over free speech and migration or Trump describing Europe as … Continue reading Trump\u2019s EU foreign policy, implicated scholarship and the \u2018Brussels Effect\u2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7259,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[49,44,33,45,57,40,51],"tags":[37,38,39],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai","category-comparative-law","category-data-protection","category-deregulation","category-global-law","category-platform-regulation","category-trump-administration","tag-brussels-effect","tag-platform-regulation","tag-trump-administration"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions\/199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}