Trump makes America Inc’s grip on the world even tighter

“I miss nothing,” declares Dirk Schrödter, the digitisation minister for the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Over a video-call using OpenTalk, a German alternative to Microsoft’s Teams, he explains how in the past two years he has moved some 30,000 of the state’s civil servants from the American company’s collaboration and productivity tools to open-source alternatives. He has now begun the process of shifting staff from Windows to Linux, an open-source operating system.

The move has attracted the attention of public officials elsewhere who are also keen to cut ties with America’s tech giants. “Every week we have questions from other states, other cities and governments inside and outside of Europe,” he says.

The growing interest in open-source software reflects a new geopolitical reality. America has long used its commercial prowess to hurt its enemies, such as imposing sanctions against Iran and Russia. But now, even allies worry that it could cut off their access to critical technologies – or at least threaten to during, say, a trade negotiation.

Governments abroad are examining the extent to which their ability to operate depends on American suppliers. Fears were stoked last May when Karim Khan, then the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, lost access to his Microsoft email account after President Donald Trump brought sanctions against the court over its issuing of an arrest warrant for Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. (Microsoft says it did not cut its service.) Another jolt came this June when Trump forced Anthropic, an artificial-intelligence lab, to temporarily cut off access to its latest models in foreign countries. America’s allies also took note when it twice paused its supply of weapons to Ukraine last year.

American firms win a small share of the contracts tendered by governments abroad. But their products and services often underpin critical government functions. Various efforts are thus under way to reduce reliance on American suppliers and nurture domestic alternatives. In many cases, however, doing so will be enormously difficult.

Europe in particular has emerged as a centre for efforts to flush America Inc out of government supply chains. France’s national government is planning to ditch Teams and wants to move some computers to Linux. Local governments, including the cities of Reus in Spain and Aarhus in Denmark, have turned to European cloud providers such as Nextcloud and Hetzner, both from Germany. In June, the European Commission unveiled a plan to boost the continent’s “technological sovereignty” that, among other things, aims to shift the processing of sensitive government data to such providers. Last year Spain cancelled an order for F-35 fighter jets, supplied by America’s Lockheed Martin. British politicians are urging the prime minister to implement a break clause in a contract between Palantir, an American analytics firm, and the National Health Service.

Our estimates suggest that, at an aggregate level, American companies account for a modest share of public spending abroad.