"Question. For many years, you’ve been trying to get U.S. technology companies to process the data of European citizens according to EU standards. Is that possible with Trump in the White House?

Answer. A legal system has to be stable precisely in situations where you have a crazy president. If everyone were nice and friendly, we wouldn’t need laws. A big issue is how much the whole data economy has become part of this trade war. One of the only things that Europe can retaliate [against] is going to be the digital industry. It’s one of the things where [Americans] make shitloads of money. It’s the financial industry, digital industry… and that’s about it.

The [EU] Commission just fined Meta and Apple… and the former responded with a very Trumpian press release, saying, “Oh, this is a tariff.” You broke the law and you knew you were doing it, so now you can’t just say it’s a tariff. It’s like someone driving their Porsche at 180 miles an hour and, when they get fined, they say, “Oh, you just hate rich people.”

Q. Is the European Commission right to fine two tech giants in the middle of a tariff war?

A. The EC is taking things slowly, because it doesn’t want to be the first to throw a stone. But at some point, you have to enforce your law. We must address the issue of technological dependence. In the U.S., there’s even been talk of American companies not offering their services in Greenland and Denmark. It’s crazy, because then no one would trust those companies again… but we also thought no one would ever start a trade war."