Should Europe boycott American technology because of Greenland, and is it even possible?

As US President Donald Trump continues to demand that Greenland be under his country’s control, European nations are pushing for a range of responses, from boosting their military presence in the Danish-held territory to imposing economic sanctions on the US. The extraordinary threat to world order also has Europeans wondering whether it is time to break away from the global dominance of American technology – but is it even possible?

Individuals who want to boycott American technology are in for a tough time. For example, if you ditch your iPhone in favor of South Korea’s Samsung, you’ll still be involved in the Android ecosystem, which is linked to America’s Google. Some Chinese phone makers, such as Huawei, have developed their own operating systems, but that would mean trading one geopolitical giant for another.

And it’s not just about the hardware. Major social networks, from Facebook and Instagram to Snapchat and X, are based in the US, as are video streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video. Even the rare platform that isn’t operated from the US, TikTok, is thanks to a Trump-backed deal. Perhaps the only major non-US platform that people use on a daily basis is Spotify, which was founded in Sweden.

Europe has some alternatives for mainstream technology products: for example, French firms have developed a search engine called Qwant and a ChatGPT replacement called Mistral. For smartphones, your options are more limited and far outside the mainstream: the Liberux Nexx is a Spanish smartphone with a Linux operating system, while the German company Volla sells a phone with its own operating system. Neither is commonly used. But beyond individuals, can governments and companies do something to relinquish American technological dominance—and should they?

“It’s crazy that almost all European public services run on American platforms like Microsoft or Google,” he says Tommaso Valletti at Imperial College London in Great Britain. Current arguments about Greenland’s future should clarify ideas, he says. “Of course you can’t replace that overnight, but that’s why Europe has to start building alternatives.

Some European countries were considering their options even before the latest crisis in Greenland. in November key figures at the Berlin summit agreed on seven points on how to reduce dependence on non-European technology companies and at the same time strengthen companies in the region. One initiative, known as EuroStackargues that Europe should “buy, sell and finance” domestic cloud computing, artificial intelligence and connectivity services, in part because just 1 percent of the European Commission’s own cloud stack – the hardware and software that underpins its digital services – currently run on a domestic provider.

Proponents argue that building a sovereign digital repository will be expensive – potentially running into trillions of euros – but necessary to avoid a future in which a hostile US administration could effectively drop a digital kill switch on European infrastructure. Simply basing our technology choices on cost and the past open market, without considering other considerations such as national security, is “still naïve,” he says Kristina Irionová at the University of Amsterdam.

But change will be difficult because many corporate and public IT systems rely on companies like Microsoft and Google for their day-to-day operations, he says Chloe Teevan at the European Center for Development Policy Management, a think tank in the Netherlands. “People are already in their ecosystems, so it’s not easy to offer an alternative that’s attractive to people, and the policies of the last 20 years haven’t helped,” he says.

Building large infrastructure also takes time, especially in a fragmented and slow-moving market like Europe. Because of this, some European decision makers may question whether cutting ties is worth the effort, given that Trump is expected to be out of office by 2029. “I actually think nothing will happen fast enough to have any impact,” Irion says.

But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen, largely because politics aside, relying on companies in other countries in such a geopolitically turbulent world isn’t the smartest idea, Teevan says.

“It won’t be easy, but doing nothing is abdication,” says Valletti. “Starting now is the only way to have real options in the future.”

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