US Visa Bans and Tariff Threats Meet Europe's Digital Services Act Fines on X and Temu
In late December 2025 Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa bans on five Europeans connected to online content rules. They included Thierry Breton, the former EU commissioner who had driven the Digital Services Act, and the heads of three campaign groups that work on online hate and disinformation. The European Commission strongly condemned the move. Emmanuel Macron called it intimidation and coercion. A US judge later issued a temporary order protecting one of the five, Imran Ahmed.
The bans came three weeks after the first fine under the DSA: €120 million against X on 5 December 2025. The charges were all about the platform’s design: a blue checkmark the Commission found deceptive, an advertising repository that didn’t meet the rules, and blocked data access for researchers.
That exchange sums up Washington’s position in 2026. Europe, Britain and Australia are building rulebooks for platforms. The US government treats those rulebooks as an attack on American companies and American speech, and has moved from statements to visas and tariff threats.
Europe keeps enforcing
The DSA cases have kept coming. In February 2026 the Commission sent TikTok preliminary findings over addictive design and opened an investigation into Shein. In March it sent preliminary findings to four adult sites that let users simply declare their age. In April it opened proceedings against Meta over children under 13. On 28 May it fined Temu €200 million for failing to deal with the risk of illegal products, the second DSA fine.
The pattern is worth noticing. Brussels has mostly gone after systems: design features, ad libraries, age checks, risk assessments. It hasn’t fined anyone for a single piece of content. That fits the law’s design. The DSA is written as a duty-of-care law for very large platforms, and system failures are much easier to prove than editorial ones.
Washington pushes back
The US response has moved from statements to tools. A White House memo in February 2025 told the US Trade Representative to scrutinise the DSA and the EU’s Digital Markets Act. In August 2025 President Trump threatened tariffs and chip export restrictions over digital rules. Then came the visa bans. In June 2026 he threatened 100% tariffs on any country with a digital services tax. The EU said it would respond swiftly and decisively.
The disagreement is real and runs deep. American law treats most platform moderation as protected speech, and platforms as largely immune for what users post. European law treats very large platforms as infrastructure with public duties. Neither side is likely to move. Companies will be living with both for years.
Britain and the age-check model
The UK’s Online Safety Act went further on one point: age verification. Since 25 July 2025, porn sites have had to use highly effective age assurance. Ofcom has started fining. In December 2025 it fined AVS Group £1 million plus £50,000 for ignoring an information request. In March 2026 it fined 4chan £450,000 for missing age checks, with further penalties for no risk assessment and inadequate terms. 4chan refuses to pay and is suing in the US.
That’s the regulator’s practical problem. A fine is easy to issue against an offshore site. Collecting it is something else.
The under-16 wave
The fastest-moving idea isn’t European at all. Australia’s ban on social media accounts for under-16s took effect on 10 December 2025, with fines up to A$49.5 million. In the first month, about 4.7 million accounts were deactivated.
Others followed within months. Indonesia has had an under-16 ban since March 2026 and Malaysia under-16 rules since June. Brazil requires accounts to be linked to guardians. Türkiye passed an under-15 law in April. France’s parliament passed an under-15 ban in July, for new accounts from September 2026 and existing ones from January 2027, subject to review by its Constitutional Council. Greece starts in January 2027 and the UK is aiming for early 2027. Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the EU itself are considering the same.
This is how policy travels between governments now. One country takes the political risk, publishes a number, and others copy the law within a year. The US, where the main platforms live, hasn’t followed. Its fight is over who regulates tech at all.