Europeans think Trump can shut down their internet

BRUSSELS — Most Europeans believe the U.S. could pull the plug on technology that Europe heavily relies on, according to a new poll.

Eighty-six percent of people think a sudden U.S. move to restrict Europe’s access to digital services is “plausible” and “should not be ruled out,” and 59 percent called it “already a real and concrete risk,” in a survey conducted by SWG and Polling Europe presented to European Parliament members this week.

European governments are trying to reduce their dependency on U.S. technology for critical services like cloud, communications and AI.

One fear driving the shift to use homegrown tech is that of a “kill switch”; the idea that U.S. President Donald Trump could force the hand of American tech providers to cease services in Europe. Those fears peaked when the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan lost access last year to his Microsoft-hosted email account after the U.S. imposed sanctions on him.

“During the last year, everybody has really realized how important it is that we are not dependent on one country or one company when it comes to some very critical technologies,” the EU’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen told an audience in Brussels earlier this year, at an event organized by POLITICO.

“In these times … dependencies, they can be weaponized against us,” Virkkunen said.

The survey quizzed 5,079 respondents across all 27 EU member countries in January. For 55 percent of those interviewed, charting a “European path” has become a “central strategic issue.”

The European Parliament and a series of national government institutions have already taken steps to move away from ubiquitous U.S. tech — though EU capitals have cautioned the transition won’t happen overnight.

The European Commission is also finalizing a set of proposals due in late May to reduce reliance on foreign tech, including defining what qualifies as a sovereign provider and which critical sectors should rely exclusively on them to safeguard European data and day-to-day operations.

The poll suggests U.S. efforts to debunk and dismiss the “kill switch” scenario haven’t convinced Europeans.

U.S. National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross told an audience in Munich in February that the idea that Trump can pull the plug on the internet is not “a credible argument.”

Microsoft President Brad Smith said in Brussels last year that the “kill switch” scenario was “exceedingly unlikely” to happen, but acknowledged it’s “a real concern of people across Europe.” He pledged to push back against any prospective orders to suspend operations in Europe.

U.S. firms at the same time are rushing to assuage the concerns with safeguards, like air-gapped solutions that would prove resilient in the case of operational disruptions.