US vs Europe explodes over online censorship: Trump slaps visa bans; EU threatens major retaliation

The United States has barred five European figures from entering the country, accusing them of helping to censor American speech online, a move that has triggered sharp backlash across Europe and raised new tensions between longtime allies. The travel bans were announced by the Trump administration and confirmed Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Previous question about Europe and I believe this guy, a news reporter, referenced civilizational erasure, which is a term that has been used by both the White House and the State Department. Both the White House and the State Department have made kind of recurring overtures to Europe as a civilization that is in some sort of danger and that should join with the United States as a sort of Western civilizational bloc.

And it seems to be a recurring priority. However, with the release of the National Security Strategy, many European leaders, leader of Germany, members of the European Parliament have found it totally unacceptable or offensive or question the allyship of the United States with the rhetoric that was used.

So I just wonder if the United States is correct in that these policies like mass migration will lead to civilizational erasure, is it possible to save European civilization if the governments simply don't want to be saved?

Yeah, listen. How has this alliance long been described as the Western alliance, right? What is it – and it's not just me saying. You go to these NATO meetings, you meet with people, what they will tell you is our shared history, our shared legacy, our shared values, our shared priorities. That's what they talk about as the reason for this alliance.

Well, if you erase your shared history, your shared culture, your shared ideology, your shared priorities, your shared principles, then what – then you just have a straight-up defense agreement. That's all you have. So what I'm trying to point to, and what we've tried to point to, is very simple. That is, at the bedrock and at the cornerstone of our relationship, for example, with Europe, is the fact that we do have a shared culture, a shared civilization, a shared experience, and shared values and principles on things like human rights, on freedom, on democracy, on all sorts of the rights of the individual, all these sorts of things that we in this nation

are the inheritors of in many cases, because many of these ideas that led to the founding of our country found their genesis in some of these places in the Western alliance. If you take that away, if that's wiped out because for whatever reason it's no longer a priority,

I do think it puts a strain and threatens the alliance in the long term and in the big picture. Now, whatever internal politics causes people to dispute this, I'm not going to comment on other than to tell you that I do think, I do think that at the core of these special relationships we have is the fact that we have shared history, shared values, shared civilizational principles that we should be unapologetic about. This is a nation that was founded on Western principles. Founded on Western principles like liberty, the value and the right of the individual, the right of self-governance.

These are all Western values. Now, others may have adopted it in different parts of the world, but they emanate from Western history. And it's something that we should be apologetic about. Why would we be apologetic about it? Anyone who doesn't recognize, for example, that many of the features of our system of government find their root in Roman and Greek history is a fool. It's just not true. And so I think that we need to understand and

embrace that, not negate it. And I think that's what we're pointing to here, is that we are concerned that, particularly in parts of Western Europe, those things that underpin our alliance and are tied to them could be under threat in the long term. And by the way, there are leaders in those countries that recognize that as well. Some say it openly, some say it privately. In the eastern and southern part of Europe, they're much more open about it. Nonetheless, it is a factor that needs to be addressed.

Among those barred is Thierry Breton, previously clashed publicly with tech billionaire Elon Musk over content moderation and online speech, including during the lead-up to the U.S. election. Rubio said the five Europeans had pressured American technology companies to suppress viewpoints they opposed, calling it an unacceptable form of extraterritorial censorship. The travel bans fall under a new US visa policy announced in May, designed to restrict entry

for foreigners deemed responsible for censorship of protected speech in the United States.

Our visa system, who you allow to visit your country, should reflect the national interest. We said that from the very beginning. It was one of the directives that we got from the president. It's one of the things he ran on. And so our visa process basically is,

and there are some times we'll deny people visas because of activities they've undertaken overseas. Other times it's people that have visas but are in the United States doing things that run counter to our national interests. And the law gives us the right, and in fact I would argue the obligation, to remove people like that from our country. And we're going to continue to do it. I mean, it's as simple as that.

I mean, sometimes somebody comes in and says, oh, I want to come in as a student. They're here as a student, and then once they're here, they're involved in nefarious activity, we're going to remove them from the country. But then maybe they're visa is a visitor. It's not a right. By the way, we deny visas every day all over the world. People will go to an embassy, they'll sit for an interview, and the consular officer will deny them a visa because of something that came up in their record, because of something

that came up in their interview, whatever it may be. So if you have the power to deny someone a visa before they get one, you most certainly have the power to revoke it once they get one and then do something they shouldn't be doing. So there's a variety of reasons why visas are denied, but all of them are because it implicates our national interests or national security in some way.

The European Commission, which oversees digital regulation across the EU, warned that it may take action against what it called unjustified measures. It said it has formally requested clarification from the U.S. State Department. European officials insist their digital laws are not about censorship, but about safety, fairness, and accountability online. At the center of the dispute is the EU's Digital Services Act, which requires platforms to flag illegal and harmful content,

such as hate speech and disinformation. Nothing in the DSA forces or asks or requests a platform to remove lawful content. The only thing that is being asked is illegal content. Content that is illegal in real life has no place online. We don't ask any platform to remove any lawful content. We just need to make the difference between illegal content and then content that is potentially harmful. There we ask just platforms to take

appropriate risk mitigation measures. If a platform is not compliant, you can open formal proceedings. The platform has the possibility to offer commitments to settle the case. If at some point we come to a non-compliance decision confirming the breach under the Digital Services Act, this could lead to fines going offer commitments to settle the case. If at some point we come to a non-compliance decision confirming the breach under the Digital Services Act, this could lead to fines going up to 6% of the company's

global annual turnover.

Because they're worried that the boat strikes violate international law and they don't want to be involved. Doesn't that strain these relations with the key partners that you say you need in order to do these broader security efforts in the region?

No.

No, it doesn't. I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, I'm not going to comment on intelligence matters. I see – look, every day I read stuff that's just not true. Every day. I'm not telling you guys are being – but you're being – you guys are being lied to sometimes, like sources will come to you and tell you things. Maybe they just want to sound important. Maybe they have other – maybe they have other incentives. I'm not opining about your question in particular.

I'm just writ large, but I'm not going to talk about intelligence matters. Suffice it to say that the United States – every boat strike we've conducted, okay – this is not people seeing a boat and say, okay, let the drummer get wicked and blow him up. We're not talking about that stuff. We are presenting – every single one of these is justified. We know who's on those boats. We've been tracking them from the very beginning. We know everything about them. There are boat strikes we don't take because they

don't meet the criteria, the legal criteria. We have everything we need and it's one of the reasons why you've seen this massive deployment in the region is to be able to gather intelligence and paint a picture that we can justify to to be able to gather intelligence and paint a picture that we can justify to lawyers based on the law. So I'm very confident about that effort. It's been very successful.