Here’s a question someone in Washington needs to answer: Who is slowing down President Trump’s investigation into Europe?
Because the president gave a pretty clear order. And yet, more than a month later, nothing has happened.
We’re watching the same game play out with Canada right now.
According to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, the United States and Canada had found a path toward a trade deal. Then Canadian negotiators suddenly backed away from the near-final agreement because they “wanted more.”
Now Canada is imposing retaliatory tariffs and blaming the United States for the breakdown.
Sound familiar?
For far too long, some of America’s closest allies have operated under the assumption that they can take advantage of the United States economically and Washington will eventually shrug its shoulders and move on.
President Trump was elected in part to end exactly that kind of thinking.
And while everyone is focused on Canada, we cannot forget what Europe has been doing to some of America’s most successful companies.
For years, European officials have buried American technology companies under investigations, regulations, and massive fines. They have forced U.S. companies to redesign products, demanded access to proprietary technology, and extracted billions of dollars in penalties.
And let’s be clear about something: These are some of the most innovative and successful companies America has ever produced.
Europe has struggled to produce technology companies that can compete with them. So instead of beating American companies in the marketplace, European regulators increasingly appear determined to regulate them into submission.
President Trump saw what was happening and decided America wasn’t going to sit there and take it anymore.
On July 24, he announced that the United States would “immediately” open a Section 301 investigation into Europe’s treatment of American technology companies after the European Commission fined Google another $1 billion for alleged violations of its Digital Markets Act.
There was nothing ambiguous about the word immediately.
Yet more than a month later, the investigation still hasn’t begun.
So what happened?
It certainly doesn’t appear to be opposition from American technology companies.
Google publicly thanked the Trump administration for its engagement after the investigation was announced. Amazon, Apple, Meta, X, and other American companies have spent years fighting Europe’s attempts to regulate and penalize them.
And it doesn’t appear to be President Trump’s top trade official.
Ambassador Greer has been remarkably direct about what Europe is doing. He has described its actions as “de facto forced technology transfer and intellectual property theft” backed by “unreasonable financial penalties.”
Think about this: Greer says Europe’s fines against Google alone add up to more than 2% of the European Union’s entire budget.
Google is effectively contributing more through fines than many EU member countries.
That should get everyone’s attention.
So if the president wants the investigation, his trade representative has publicly condemned Europe’s behavior, and America’s technology companies have spent years fighting these policies, who exactly is stopping this from moving forward?
Is it holdover career bureaucrats slow-walking another part of President Trump’s America First agenda?
Is someone inside the government more worried about offending Brussels than carrying out the president’s directive?
Or is this simply another example of a massive federal bureaucracy incapable of moving with the urgency demanded by the person elected to run the executive branch?
Whatever the answer is, the result is exactly what Europe wants.
The European Commission hasn’t withdrawn its Google fine.
It hasn’t eased its regulations targeting American technology companies.
It hasn’t stopped its investigations.
It hasn’t offered meaningful concessions.
Why would it?
So far, there have been no formal consequences.
Every additional week of delay tells European officials that maybe they can simply wait President Trump out.
Meanwhile, Europe is moving forward with its so-called “Tech Sovereignty Package,” putting up to €10 billion in public funding and awarding another €180 million in sovereign-cloud contracts as part of an effort explicitly designed to reduce reliance on “foreign” technology providers.
Let’s translate that from bureaucratic language into English.
They want to reduce their dependence on American technology companies while simultaneously using European regulatory power against those same American companies.
That’s not free-market competition.
If Europe wants its technology companies to compete with ours, great.
Build better products.
Innovate.
Compete.
Win customers.
But don’t use government regulators and billions of dollars in public money to tilt the playing field against American companies and then act shocked when an American president finally says enough.
That is why President Trump’s Section 301 investigation matters.
This isn’t simply about Google.
It isn’t simply about one European fine.
It’s about whether the United States is finally willing to defend American companies when foreign governments use regulatory power to put them at a disadvantage.
And there is an even bigger message being sent here.
Canada is watching.
China is watching.
Every major American trading partner is watching.
They are watching to see whether President Trump’s threats have consequences and whether his administration will actually follow through when another country pushes the United States around.
President Trump has made his position clear.
His chief trade official has made his position clear.
Now somebody needs to explain why the president’s directive still hasn’t been carried out.
Because every day Washington waits is another gift to Brussels — and another signal to the rest of the world that they can test America’s resolve without paying a price.
The president said immediately.
It’s already past time for Washington to start acting like it.
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Ben Ferguson is a nationally syndicated talk radio host and author. He is the host of “The Ben Ferguson Podcast” and the co-host of “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” one of the top-ranked political podcasts in the country.
