The Dutch Parliament is taking steps to end the country’s reliance on U.S. software companies, the latest response to the Trump administration’s stance toward long-time allies.
According to Reuters, the Dutch Parliament passed a series of motions designed to help the country become more technologically independent. The motions included measures to create a Dutch cloud service.
“The question we as Europeans must ask ourselves is: do we feel comfortable with people like Trump, (Meta CEO Mark) Zuckerberg and (X owner Elon) Musk ruling over our data?” Marieke Koekkoek co-author of one of the motions and a member of the pro-European Volt party, said in an email to Reuters.
EU, including Dutch, authorities have talked of ending dependence on U.S. companies before, but the current political climate is adding an impetus to those talks that has never existed before.
“This is only the first step in potentially doing something,” Bert Hubert, a Dutch technology expert, told the outlet.
“With the advent of Trump 2.0, it has become clear that this is not something you can harmlessly sign off on,” he said.
The Netherlands’ dilemma underscores the growing challenges countries face navigating the Trump administration’s whims. With Trump threatening tariffs on long-time allies, not to mention threatening the use of force to take territory, countries no longer feel they can trust or rely on the U.S., despite decades of close relations.
The Netherlands’ actions also serves as a warning of the challenges U.S. companies are likely to face. AWS, Microsoft, Google, Apple, and countless other U.S. countries provide products and services that are ubiquitous the world over. If other countries believe the U.S. and its companies can no longer be trusted, the best days of U.S. tech companies could be in the rear view mirror.
from WebProNews https://ift.tt/bIu3HSv
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