Fifty years since the first data privacy laws in the early 1970s(1) the United States and Europe have reached a stalemate in their conflict over the global practices of surveillance capitalism. National governments, particularly in the EU, through much stronger enforcement of data privacy laws, and competition and consumer protection laws, are at last threatening their business models.

In 2025, into this stalemate enters the second Trump Administration …

Creating an authoritarian regime

In little more than six months since his second inauguration President Donald Trump has set the scene for an authoritarian(2) regime in the US, with an aggressive foreign policy to match. Global data privacy laws are likely to be one target, and perhaps one casualty, of this “authoritarian turn”. The following analysis is not concerned with the adverse effect of Trump’s policies on the privacy of Americans; it is concerned with their effects on the rest of the world.