By Kim Mackrael

BRUSSELS -- President Trump doesn't have many good things to say about Europe these days. Neither do some of America's most powerful CEOs.

The new U.S. National Security Strategy, a foreign-policy declaration that shocked European leaders with its harsh language about the continent, echoed complaints from American executives about what they see as the European Union's oppressive business regulations.

The strategy document, published Friday, targets Europe over various grievances, including what it calls a "failed focus on regulatory suffocation." Europe's declining share of global economic output stems in part from "national and transnational regulations that undermine creativity and industriousness," the document says.

The criticism was amplified last week by a $140 million EU fine against Elon Musk's X. The decision erupted into a social-media storm involving Musk and U.S. officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who referred to the fine as "an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments."

Trump on Monday called the fine "a nasty one" and said he didn't think it was right. "Europe has to be very careful," he said.

The EU separately opened an antitrust investigation Tuesday into Alphabet's Google over its use of uploaded content for artificial-intelligence tools. A Google spokeswoman said the complaint that sparked the investigation risks stifling innovation.

Many American business leaders have voiced frustration with the bloc's regulations. The chief executives of companies including energy giant Exxon Mobil, chemicals manufacturer Huntsman, JPMorgan Chase and Ford Motor have all raised concerns in recent weeks about the bloc's regulatory environment or about specific EU regulations.

U.S. multinationals care about the EU's rules because the bloc is too valuable for most of them to ignore. It unites roughly 450 million consumers under a common set of rules. Its 27 member states, taken together, constitute America's top trading partner and its biggest destination for foreign direct investment.

The security strategy makes a similar point. "Trans-Atlantic trade remains one of the pillars of the global economy and of American prosperity," it says, adding the U.S. can't afford to write Europe off.

"For all the talk about Europe being in decline and civilizational decay and all that, it remains a very, very important market for U.S. businesses," said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow with Brussels-based think tank Bruegel.

The European Commission, the bloc's executive body, has repeatedly rejected suggestions that it could change its regulations to appease the Trump administration. A spokesman said after the security strategy was released that the EU makes its own decisions -- including those related to its regulatory autonomy -- and would "continue to engage constructively while ensuring Europe's competitiveness."

Europeans were unsettled by much of the language in U.S. security strategy, which said that the continent faces "civilizational erasure" and that some European countries might become too weak to remain reliable allies. The comments on regulatory overreach were less of a surprise.

The irony, according to some observers, is that the American criticism comes even as the EU is already paring regulations. Lawmakers agreed Tuesday on a plan to relax requirements for companies to report on the human-rights and environmental impacts of their business activities, part of a push to ease companies' regulatory burdens and make the continent more competitive.

With the EU trimming its own regulations, Kirkegaard said, American companies probably feel "that they're pushing on an open door."

European leaders have rallied behind last year's report by former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, which called on the bloc to ease its regulatory burden and more aggressively pursue industrial policy, among other measures -- or risk what Draghi termed "slow agony."

The European Commission responded with legislative proposals in recent months that it says should simplify the EU's rules and improve the business environment. Business groups broadly support the plan, though they say more is needed to improve the continent's competitiveness.

"I think on the whole, everybody agrees that simplification is needed" -- even if there is pushback in some areas, said Maria Demertzis, chief economist for Europe at the Conference Board, a global think tank with headquarters in New York.

U.S. companies' frustration covers a range of regulatory issues, from the bloc's climate and energy rules to digital laws that govern big tech companies and what executives say is excessive red tape.

JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said recently that the EU "got bogged down" and never finished eliminating barriers in its single market.

"They do some wonderful things on their safety nets," he said of Europe during a panel appearance Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum. "But they've driven business out, they've driven investment out, they've driven innovation out. It's kind of coming back."

Ford CEO Jim Farley wrote in the Financial Times this week that Europe's plan to use regulations to quickly shift the automotive industry toward electric vehicles wasn't realistic and made it difficult for companies to plan investments.

A spokesman for Exxon, whose chief executive has criticized the EU's sustainability reporting rules, said changes lawmakers agreed to Tuesday were an improvement but didn't go far enough. "The ability of Brussels to regulate a U.S. company's operations anywhere in the world remains, and this is completely unacceptable," the spokesman said.

Peter Huntsman, chief executive of chemicals manufacturer Huntsman, said the EU needed to do more than simplify its rules. "I just don't see that there's any seriousness," he said this week. "There are no bold ideas coming out of Europe right now."

Write to Kim Mackrael at kim.mackrael@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 09, 2025 23:00 ET (04:00 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.