Rubio announces visa bans on European officials accused of censoring American speech |
A new fault line has opened in transatlantic relations as the United States moves to penalize European figures accused of pressuring American technology companies to suppress political speech. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on December 24 that Washington will impose visa bans on several Western Europeans whom the Trump administration accuses of engaging in what it calls “extraterritorial censorship” of American viewpoints.
The decision marks a significant escalation in a long-simmering dispute between Washington and Brussels over digital regulation, free expression, and the global reach of European Union law. It also signals a broader shift in US foreign policy under the Trump administration, which has increasingly framed European content moderation efforts as a direct threat to American constitutional values.
In a post on X, Rubio accused unnamed “ideologues in Europe” of leading “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose.” He made clear that the US government views these actions not merely as regulatory disagreements but as unacceptable interference in domestic political discourse.
“The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship,” Rubio wrote, adding that the State Department would bar “leading figures of the global censorship industrial complex” from entering the United States. He warned that the list could expand if European officials and activists do not “reverse course.”
Shortly afterward, US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers........