US Links Steel Tariffs to Softer DMA Enforcement — and the EU's Answer Is Due by Year's End

The United States has told the European Union, again, that it will not cut tariffs on European steel unless Brussels goes easy on enforcing the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the EU's rulebook for Big Tech. POLITICO reported on 22 October that the European Commission relayed the warning from the Trump administration to EU capitals at a closed-door meeting last week, citing two people with knowledge of the conversation.

The timing is not accidental. Under the EU regulation that put the Turnberry trade deal into law, the Commission has to report to the European Parliament and EU governments before the end of the year on whether Washington is keeping its side of the bargain on steel tariffs. US tariffs on steel and aluminium still run as high as 50 percent, far above the 15 percent general ceiling agreed for EU goods. The American warning lands exactly where that report has to be written.

None of this is new either. During a November 2025 visit to Brussels, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick offered relief on steel and aluminium if the EU softened its digital rules. Competition chief Teresa Ribera answered at the time: "It is blackmail," and said the rules were not up for negotiation.

What Washington is asking for

The ask, as reported, is about enforcement pace, not legislation: there is no US proposal to amend the Digital Markets Act itself on the table, only pressure on how hard the Commission pushes the companies designated under it.

• The Commission relayed the US message to member states last week; both the Commission and the US mission to the EU declined to comment, so the account rests on officials briefed on the meeting.
• US Ambassador Andrew Puzder has been making the case publicly. In an interview released on 18 October he warned European businesses to expect "devastating" retaliation from a market as large as America's, and asked whether DMA enforcement is about competition at all: "are we trying to deal with the competition in the digital marketplace or are we trying to generate revenue from American companies to benefit Europe?"
• The US complaint has not changed: the DMA's thresholds are met mainly by American companies, enforcement is aggressive and the fines are large.

What the EU can actually do about it

• Before the end of the year the Commission must tell Parliament and governments whether the US is honouring its steel-tariff commitments under the trade deal.
• If it concludes the US is not complying, it is empowered — but not obliged — to withdraw the preferences the EU granted: zero tariffs on American industrial goods.
• Despite pressure from MEPs, who insisted on that safeguard precisely for this moment, there is little appetite in the Commission or among governments to use it, for fear of reigniting a trade war.

That is the whole of the EU's counter-lever: a discretionary tariff move it does not want to make. Ribera's "blackmail" line still describes the EU's stated position, but stated position and leverage are not the same thing.

What the DMA has cost so far

• The EU has fined Apple, Meta and Google a combined 1.59 billion euros under the DMA since April 2025.
• The largest and most recent is Google's 890 million euro penalty from July 2026: 460 million for putting its own shopping, hotel, transport and sports results above rivals in search, and 430 million for stopping app developers from pointing users to cheaper offers elsewhere.
• Google was given 60 days to comply or face daily penalty payments of up to 5 percent of its average daily worldwide turnover. Since mid-October the Commission has been in dialogue with the company about the changes it is making; Google's president of global affairs, Kent Walker, called the ruling "unfair competition."
• The next designations would widen the argument: the Commission is expected to name Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure as DMA gatekeepers in November, moving the law from phone makers to cloud infrastructure.

Why the timing matters

The warning arrives before US midterm elections on 3 November, after a period of calm that followed the Turnberry deal. Both sides have an interest in showing something: Washington that it can extract concessions, Brussels that a trade agreement does not buy control of its rulebook.

On the other side of the ledger, the dependency argument is not only made in Washington. Palantir's UK and Europe chief, Louis Mosley, told Bloomberg this week that Europe "is going to have to accept some dependency" on US technology for now, and noted that Europe's China dependence in hardware — drone magnets, for instance — gets far less discussion than its software dependence. Several governments are moving the other way anyway: France's domestic intelligence agency plans to drop Palantir for a French supplier.

What is not settled

• No formal US request to change the DMA exists on paper. The pressure is applied to enforcement decisions, case by case, which is also what makes it hard to rebut in public.
• The Commission has not said what it will put in the year-end report, and it has discretion over both the finding and the response.
• The trade-off is real on both sides: the fines have fallen overwhelmingly on American firms, and a tariff deal cannot rewrite legislation passed by Parliament. Which principle gives way is what the next two months will show.

Sources: POLITICO, The Next Web on the Google DMA fine and the compliance talks, Ambassador Puzder's warning, via Anadolu Agency.