What’s happening in Europe right now should alarm every American who cares about jobs, innovation, and national sovereignty. The European Union has quietly advanced a regulatory agenda that could soon reach across the Atlantic, forcing American businesses to comply with European rules written by unelected bureaucrats. These new mandates would reshape how companies operate, what they disclose, and even who they can do business with, regardless of U.S. law.
Leaders in the European Union proposed changes to the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, known as CS3D, and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, known as CSRD, that may sound technical, but the consequences for the United States would be devastating.
In plain language, these rules would require any U.S. company operating in the EU to track, report, and disclose every link in their supply chain for ESG madness. CS3D, for example, could make an American manufacturer legally responsible for the labor or environmental practices of suppliers halfway around the world. CSRD would force businesses to publish detailed sustainability reports under EU-defined standards, even if they never sell directly to European consumers.
For many U.S. businesses, this is practically impossible. A small or mid-sized company might have hundreds of suppliers and subcontractors. Tracking each one to comply with European paperwork could take thousands of hours and millions of dollars. Those costs would be passed on to American workers and consumers.
American companies are justly calling out these out-of-touch, business-killing regulations. Several attorneys general are warning about the “severe burdens” American companies would face.
These regulations would give the EU authority over how American companies are governed, even when those companies are operating inside our own borders. This represents an unprecedented intrusion by a foreign body into the American economy, and it would cost our businesses billions of dollars. The ripple effects would be higher costs, lower growth, and fewer opportunities for workers.
The EU’s leadership often cloaks these efforts in language about sustainability or transparency. But behind the rhetoric is a simple fact: This is about exporting a far-left agenda that voters in the United States have repeatedly rejected. If allowed to stand, these rules would undermine American sovereignty and hand control of our economy to unelected regulators in Brussels. That cannot be tolerated.
President Donald Trump understands the stakes. He knows that prosperity at home requires strength abroad. He has already drawn a firm line against Europe’s harmful regulations on a number of fronts, and Americans should be cheering him on again to do so on CS3D and CSRD. America cannot accept a situation where our companies are regulated by foreign governments. Nor can we allow hard-won economic momentum to be stalled by European bureaucrats who do not answer to the American people.
The president has a powerful tool at his disposal. Right now, the United States and the European Union are in the early stages of implementing a new trade deal. That agreement could be conditioned on the EU abandoning its attempt to impose CS3D and CSRD on American companies. The message would be unmistakable: If the EU insists on these rules, the trade deal will not move forward. Only by making the costs of their actions clear will European leaders change course.
Trump can protect the Golden Age he has worked so hard to launch. He can make clear that American companies will not be ruled from Brussels. He can stand firm in defense of our workers, our industries, and our economic future. With Trump’s strong leadership, America can continue down the path to lasting prosperity.
Matt Mowers and Joe Grogan are senior advisors to the EU-US Forum, an American nonprofit organization that aims to advance President Trump’s conservative agenda in Europe and stop the EU’s radical leftism from coming to the US.
Mowers previously served as a Senior White House Advisor at the U.S. Department of State in President Trump’s first administration. Grogan previously served as the Director of the Domestic Policy Council in President Trump’s first administration.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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