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      Trump administration suspends $5bn electric vehicle charging program

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      The Trump administration has ordered US states to suspend a $5bn electric vehicle charging station program in a further blow to the environmental movement since the president’s return to the White House.In a memo issued on Thursday to state transportation directors, the transportation department’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) ordered states not to spend any funds allocated to them under the Biden administration as part of the national electric vehicle infrastructure (NEVI) program.“The new leadership of the Department of Transportation … has decided to review the policies underlying the implementation of the NEVI Formula Program,” Emily Biondi, the FHWA’s associate administrator for planning, environment and realty, wrote in the memo. “Accordingly, the current NEVI Formula Program Guidance dated June 11, 2024, and all prior versions of this guidance are rescinded,” Biondi added.“As result of the rescission of the NEVI Formula Program Guidance, FHWA is also immediately suspending the approval of all State Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment plans for all fiscal years. Therefore, effective immediately, no new obligations may occur under the NEVI Formula Program until the updated final NEVI Formula Program Guidance is issued and new State plans are submitted and approved,” she wrote.Biondi added that until new guidance is issued, reimbursements of existing obligations for designing and building charging stations will be allowed in order to prevent the disruption of current financial commitments.According to an existing page on the energy department’s website, the NEVI program provides funding to states to strategically deploy EV chargers. Funding is available for up to 80% of eligible project costs including the acquisition, installation and network connection of EV chargers, proper operation and maintenance of EV chargers, and long-term EV charger data sharing.Politico reports that as of Thursday, the FHWA removed several website pages that provided information on the NEVI program.In a statement to Politico, Andrew Rogers, a former deputy FHWA administrator under the Biden administration, said that the memo “appears to ignore both the law and multiple restraining orders that have been issued by federal courts”.The outlet further reports Roger saying that the memo appears to be “in direct violation” of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, a law that restricts presidents from withholding congressionally approved funding.Currently, 14 states have at least one operational EV station, according to EV States Clearinghouse. As of last November, there are 126 public charging ports in operation across 31 NEVI stations in nine states, marking an 83% increase in open NEVI ports since last quarter, according to a NEVI report.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt added that a total of 41 states have released at least their first round of solicitations, with 35 having issued conditional awards or put agreements in place for more than 3,560 fast-charging ports across more than 890 charging station locations.Throughout his campaign, Trump railed against EVs, at one point saying that supporters of the vehicles should “rot in hell” and that Biden’s support of EVs would bring a “bloodbath” to the US’s automotive industry.Last month, as part of a flurry of executive orders he signed during his first days back in office, Trump revoked a Biden-era order from 2021 that had aimed to make half of all new vehicles sold in the US in 2030 electric. More

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      Trump has thrown out the global economic playbook. It’s time for Australia to write its own rules | John Quiggin

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      With the resumption of parliament this week, and an election only months away, we have seen even more of the usual point-scoring about the cost of living, tax breaks for long lunches and budget deficits. But since the return of Donald Trump to the White House, the assumptions on which Australian economic policy have always been based are obsolete.It’s not just the “rules-based international order”, symbolised by the already moribund World Trade Organization, that is gone. Trump is ruling by decree (more politely referred to as “executive order”) and encountering little resistance. Corporations have rushed to buy his favour (or placate his wrath). The US Treasury appears to have been turned over to Elon Musk. No one can predict what will happen here, but a major financial crisis can’t be ruled out.The most immediate threat to Australia arises from Trump’s use of tariffs as a bludgeon to be used in pursuit of vague political demands, or simply as a display of dominance. Trump’s surprising backdown in response to mostly symbolic concessions from Canada and Mexico might be seen as a recognition of the risks of overreach. More likely, however, it reflects a belief that this is a weapon that can be used over and over again, and a desire to fight one enemy at a time (Trump does not believe in friends).For the moment, the tariff fight is with China, and both sides are showing some restraint. As long as this restraint persists, the collateral damage to the Australian economy will be modest. But Trump is prone to acting like a capricious dictator. He could easily take offence at some real or imagined slight and return to the 60% tariffs he promised on the campaign trail.Tariff policy is one of many fronts. Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris climate agreement, the WHO and international aid programs. Of more immediate consequence for Australia, the US has withdrawn from the OECD agreement on corporate tax minimisation and from attempts to tax the digital economy. Musk and the other tech cronies have already threatened to punish Australia for taxing social media platforms, and for attempts to restrict toxic and violent content.In the long run, this means Australia needs to treat both the US and China as unreliable trading partners who will bully us whenever they see a benefit from doing so. We need to seek a balance between the two and, more importantly, become more self-reliant. In particular, we need to develop our own AI and social media infrastructure, for example by making our own version of DeepSeek and breaking with X and Meta as well as TikTok.In the short run, what’s needed is a recognition that the downside risks to the Australian economy have increased greatly. The government should be preparing plans for fiscal stimulus rather than worrying about public debt. More importantly, the Reserve Bank needs to start cutting rates immediately to guard against recession, even at the price of an incomplete victory over inflation.Above all, we need to ditch the illusion that all this is theatre and that things will go on as before. The US, as we knew it, is gone and won’t be back any time soon. The implications for the global economy, and therefore for Australia, are hard to discern, but they are sure to be profound.

      John Quiggin is a professor at the University of Queensland’s school of economics More

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      How the world’s richest man laid waste the US government

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      Since declaring his support for Donald Trump in July of last year and subsequently spending more than $250m on his re-election effort, Elon Musk has rapidly accumulated political influence and positioned himself at the heart of the new administration. Now as prominent as the president himself, Musk has begun to make use of that power, making decisions that could affect the health of millions of people, gaining access to highly sensitive personal data, and attacking anyone who opposes him. Musk, the world’s richest man and an unelected official, has achieved an astonishing level of power over the federal government.Over the weekend, workers with Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) clashed with civil servants over demands for unfettered access to the computer systems of major US government agencies in a breakneck series of confrontations. When the dust settled, several top officials who opposed the takeover had been pushed out, and Musk’s allies had gained control.Musk, with the backing of Trump, is now working to shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAid) – the world’s largest single supplier of humanitarian aid. He bragged on Sunday about “feeding USAid into the wood chipper”. He has also targeted several other agencies in an aggressive attempt to purge and remake the federal government along ideological lines, while avoiding congressional or judicial oversight.Many of Musk’s actions have taken place without forewarning or transparency, sowing chaos and confusion among the thousands of people employed at the agencies like USAid that he has gone after. Humanitarian organizations that rely on US funding have halted operations and laid off staff, while government workers have been locked out of their offices. He is operating Doge as an unofficial government department with no congressionally approved mandate while he technically holds the position of “special government employee”, which allows him to sidestep financial disclosures and a public vetting process.View image in fullscreenMusk has gleefully posted on X, the social media platform that he owns, throughout the chaos. He has accused USAid of corruption, and of being a “criminal organization” and “radical-left political psy op”, without any evidence. Why? He tweeted an explanation of simply doing Trump’s bidding: “All @DOGE did was check to see which federal organizations were violating the @POTUS executive orders the most. Turned out to be USAID, so that became our focus.” He said it was “time for it to die”.Musk also suggested that opposition to his team will be punished, reposting a letter sent to him from the Trump-appointed federal prosecutor for Washington DC, who vowed to “pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people”.The New York Democratic senator Chuck Schumer wrote on Tuesday morning: “An unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government. DOGE is not a real government agency. DOGE has no authority to shut programs down or to ignore federal law.” Musk responded that the reaction was “hysterical”.As other Democrats and government oversight groups began to respond to the breakneck series of actions from Musk’s team, on Tuesday the Tesla and SpaceX CEO continued to plow ahead with his cuts and told his supporters: “We’re never going to get another chance like this.”Musk takes over federal agenciesImmediately following Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, the president issued an executive order establishing Musk’s “department of government efficiency”. Rather than create an entirely new entity, the order renamed the US Digital Service, which was previously tasked with updating government IT systems, and brought the rechristened bureau into the executive office of the president.Government accountability groups instantly saw red flags with its creation, filing four separate lawsuits that alleged Doge violated federal transparency laws while warning that the initiative was “slated to dictate federal policy in ways that will affect millions of Americans”.The concerns from watchdog organizations have borne out. Musk and employees of Doge have gained access to sensitive government systems in the treasury department and USAid in recent days, as well as exerted control over the office of personnel management (OPM) and the General Services Administration, which handles federal real estate, with the goal of ending office leases. Two federal workers additionally sued on Tuesday for a temporary restraining order against Doge for allegedly operating an illegal server in OPM.View image in fullscreenAttempts at blocking Musk’s team have resulted in several top agency officials being ousted. On Friday, the treasury department’s acting secretary, David Lebryk, resigned after refusing to grant Musk’s team access to highly secure systems that control about $6tn in annual payments to millions of Americans. The next day, two senior security officials at USAid attempted to stop Doge workers from gaining physical access to restricted areas at the agency – resulting in a standoff in which a deputy for Musk threatened to call the US marshals. Both security officials have subsequently been put on administrative leave, and on Sunday night staff at USAid received emails telling them to not come into work the next day.The events unfolded swiftly and took place mostly outside of working hours, creating uncertainty over the weekend as to who was in charge and what authority the Doge team possessed. Many of the Doge team tasked with carrying out the overhauls of government agencies appear to have little to no experience in government and are extremely young. One of the engineers is as young as 19, Wired reported, while a 25-year-old who previously worked at two of Musk’s companies gained access to treasury department payment systems.The Trump administration has maintained that all Musk’s actions have been legal and did not violate security protocols, although the details of what Doge employees are doing with access to government systems is still unclear. “No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances,” Katie Miller, a Doge spokesperson and wife of the far-right Trump administration official Stephen Miller, wrote on X.Musk has claimed that his actions are cutting unnecessary costs and will allow for more efficient government, but he has also suggested his taskforce is ideologically opposed to liberal initiatives such as refugee services and the promotion of trans rights. He has routinely engaged with far-right and conspiracy theory-promoting accounts on X while touting his dismantling of USAid, an agency that has become a target in recent years among hardline conservatives. The far-right Heritage Foundation thinktank specifically called for reforming USAid in its controversial Project 2025 report, accusing it of spreading “climate extremism” and “gender radicalism”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMusk acting with Trump’s backingTrump has supported Musk’s aggressive approach to dismantling government agencies, confirming plans on Monday to shut down USAid and praising Musk as a “big cost cutter”. As backlash swelled and Democrats issued calls for action against Musk on Monday, Trump attempted to assuage some of the concerns and reassert that he was in charge.“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “We’ll give him approval where appropriate and where not appropriate we won’t.”But there have been no public signs thus far that Trump has reined in Musk’s ambitions or prevented him from engaging in potential conflicts – he has many, as a number of his companies do extensive work with government agencies he now holds sway over. Several of Trump’s recent policy announcements also appeared to align with Musk’s worldview and personal grievances.View image in fullscreenTrump declared on Monday that he would shut down all aid to South Africa, Musk’s country of birth, over what he alleged was a “massive human rights violation” in the form of a new land rights law. Musk has repeatedly accused the South African government of racism against white people and falsely claimed that the government is allowing a “genocide” against white farmers.Another executive order from Trump on 31 January vowed to “unleash prosperity through deregulation” and declared that whenever a government agency issues a new regulation it must first remove 10 existing regulations. The order has echoed Musk’s longstanding calls for widespread deregulation of the federal government, which Musk reiterated in a livestream on Monday night on X, when he stated “regulations, basically, should be default gone”. He described the current administration as “our best shot” at this deregulation and “the best hand of cards we’re ever going to have”.Musk has made sweeping and aggressive declarations about what else must change about the US government, indicating where he might strike next. He stated on Monday: “Activist judges must be removed from the bench or there is no justice,” and praised the representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for issuing calls for NPR and PBS to testify at a hearing about their operations. Greene, who is head of a “delivering on government efficiency” group within the House oversight committee that aims to support Musk’s efforts, accused the public media organizations of ideological bias – citing a PBS report that Musk “gave what appeared to be a fascist salute” during a speech last month.It is uncertain what mechanisms may prevent further cuts by Musk. His immense influence coupled with his erratic behavior have made it difficult to quickly ascertain where the next axe may fall, such as on Monday when Musk claimed that a government agency that worked on a free IRS tax filing system was “deleted” while giving no further information. The agency’s program was still online as of Tuesday.What is clear from Musk’s public statements is the intent to barrel ahead with accumulating more power over government agencies, while framing his crusade as an existential fight for the future of the country.“It’s now or never,” the billionaire tweeted on Tuesday. “Your support is crucial to the success of the revolution of the people.” More

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      Amazon donates $1m to Trump’s inaugural fund as tech cozies up to president-elect

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      Amazon is the latest tech giant to donate to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund.The company plans to give $1m to the fund, first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Amazon follows Meta, Facebook’s parent company, also handing over $1m to Trump’s inaugural committee. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Friday that he, too, would make a personal donation of $1m, first reported by Fox News.As Trump prepares to enter office for a second time, several tech titans are cozying up in hopes of favorable treatment for their businesses. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is slated to meet with Trump next week. And Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg dined with him at his Mar-a-Lago estate last month. Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly had plans to meet with the president-elect this week at his club as well. And Time magazine, which is owned by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, has named Trump its “person of the year”.OpenAI’s Altman says that Trump will be a leader in technological progress. “President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead,” he said in a written statement to the Guardian.Donations to inaugural committees are fairly standard for big businesses looking to make nice with incoming administrations. Amazon donated $57,746 to Trump’s first inaugural fund in 2017, according to OpenSecrets. Google and Microsoft also donated. Meta confirmed to the Guardian that it did not donate that year.For Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration, Amazon said the administration did not accept donations from tech companies, according to the Wall Street Journal.Trump is offering bonus perks to donors who give at least $1m to his inaugural committee, according to the New York Times. Those include several tickets to activities planned around the event, such as dinners with Trump, his cabinet picks and JD Vance.Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, had long been the focus of Trump’s ire. The president-elect had blasted the newspaper over its coverage of him, often zeroing in on Bezos for being at fault. At one point in 2018, Trump called the paper “the Amazon Washington Post” and said it had “gone crazy against me”. He also alleged the paper lobbied on behalf of Amazon.Those days of conflict may be over. Before the election, the Washington Post broke with longstanding tradition and announced it would not endorse a candidate in the presidential race, a move widely seen as Bezos not wanting to rankle Trump. Bezos defended the decision, saying it was to avoid “a perception of bias”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhen Trump won the election, Bezos praised him on X. “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory. No nation has bigger opportunities,” Bezos wrote. “Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”Amazon CEO Andy Jassy also lauded the win on X, saying it was a “hard-fought victory” and that “we look forward to working with you”. Amazon’s stock has risen 14% since the election. Amazon did not return a request for comment. More

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      Trump’s promise to tax imported goods could spell trouble for US auto industry

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      Few vehicles are as emblematic of the American auto industry’s might as the Ford F-150 pickup truck, the nation’s best-selling vehicle for over 40 years. But the F-150 is much less American than its image suggests. A fact that could present unique challenges for the company as Donald Trump moves to “make America great again”.Only about 32% of its components are made in the US or Canada, federal data shows, and that could spell trouble if Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported goods are implemented. Even less of the F-150 Lightning electric truck is made in the US – about 24%, a Cars.com analysis of federal data showed.The F-150’s price would almost certainly soar without some mitigation, industry observers say. Moreover, it would be virtually impossible to completely onshore its supply chain in short order – a process that could take many years.The uncertainty around the truck is representative of the auto industry as a whole as it waits to see if Trump follows through on his promised blanket taxes on imported goods. Top-selling vehicles in the US are similarly sourced from around the globe, and the auto industry’s supply chain is “a complicated universe”, said Ivan Drury, director of insights with industry analyst Edmunds.“The auto manufacturer is more like a parts collector – it’s not like Ford makes every component like everyone thinks,” Drury added. Because of that, tariffs would likely deliver supply chain shocks similar to the pandemic disruptions: “It could have the effect of you not getting the truck that you want.”Trump has proposed tariffs of between 60% and 100% on Chinese goods, and a tax of between 10% and 20% on every product imported from all other US trading partners, though very few details are available. During an October rally, he promised as much as a 500% tax on cars made in Mexico.“I’ll put a number where they can’t sell one car,” Trump boasted to the crowd.The goal is to force Ford and other automakers to onshore production and create manufacturing jobs here, but the idea is generating fears of shortages and inflation across the economy – the tariffs would cost the average US household about $2,600 per year, by some estimates.A more expensive F-150 could factor into that figure, but the impact of new tariffs will be felt widely across the industry.The industry analyst’s American Made Index (AMI) ranks how “American” 100 of the top vehicles sold in the US are, based on where parts are made as reported under the American Automobile Labeling Act, the location of vehicle assembly, US factory employment relative to vehicle production, and engine and transmission sourcing.The F-150 and F-150 Lightning ranked 58th and 56th, respectively, in 2024.The law does not require automakers to make granular data about where components such as steering wheels or airbags are made, so it is impossible to calculate how much a theoretical 20% import tax would increase the F-150’s cost. But Cars.com reported that the F-150’s 3.5-liter engines – including the Powerboost hybrid and the Raptor – are made in Mexico.All of its transmissions are made in the US, and final assembly takes place at plants near Kansas City or Detroit. For the F-150 Lightning, all motors and drive units are made in the US, and final assembly is near Detroit.“We’re at a point now in automotive history where the supply chain is not as simple as it once was and the badge on the hood is not indicative of where a vehicle was made,” said Patrick Masterson, chief copy editor at Cars.com.Ford didn’t respond to requests for comment, but when previously asked about the AMI rankings, it said: “Every single Ford F-Series truck is made in America. We build F-150s at Dearborn Truck Plant in Dearborn, Michigan, and Kansas City Assembly Plant in Kansas City, Missouri.”View image in fullscreenBy comparison, the highest ranking truck in the AMI was the Toyota Ridgeline, slotted at sixth, with 70% of its parts produced in the US or Canada, and final assembly in Alabama.No vehicles from Detroit automakers are represented in the top 20 – the highest ranking is the Chevrolet Colorado at 23. Meanwhile, three Teslas are in the top 10 with about 70% of their parts produced in the US, and final assembly in Austin or Fremont, California. The Cybertruck is also among the most American-made trucks. Given that figure, tariffs could be a boon to Trump ally Elon Musk.An automaker’s calculus on where it sources parts includes variables like cost and efficiency of the components’ production, and many even have joint production agreements with other automakers.Fully onshoring would be a long, difficult process because factories would have to be built or expanded, and a workforce would have to be hired and trained. Parts suppliers are often at capacity or do not keep stock on hand to meet sudden shifts in demand, Drury noted.If Ford suddenly asked a US supplier for millions of a hypothetical part for the F-150, there would be a “snowballing effect” as the automaker waited for it to be produced, he added.“We don’t have interchangeable cogs, and these aren’t widgets for which you can swap out one for the next – these are highly specialized components,” Drury said. “Things always sound good on paper at first but the reality of the situation is no factories can be made overnight; a lot of suppliers are stretched thin.”Some automakers who have invested in US factories may be in a better position to weather tariffs, Masterson said, especially with EVs. Ford and GM are readying several new plants that will produce EVs or batteries across the south and in Michigan.On the other hand, tariffs could be especially problematic for EVs because automakers import critical minerals or electronics, like semiconductors. The semiconductor industry began onshoring under Biden, who implemented significant tariffs on Chinese semiconductors, but it remains far from being able to fully supply US automakers.The hit on an F-150 buyer would in part depend on what form tariffs take, Masterson said. Trump has proposed blanket tariffs on imported goods, which would, in theory, include all components produced elsewhere, but observers suspect that may change as he receives input from automakers.Trump’s most dramatic claim – the 500% tax on imported cars – seemed aimed at those undergoing final assembly in Mexico, though a hypothetical vehicle assembled there could have a significant number of parts sourced from the US.While tariffs could ignite turmoil, the cost increases could also benefit automakers by presenting an opportunity to raise prices, and create a sellers’ inflation similar to that which padded major corporations’ profits, including some automakers, as inflation soared several years ago, said Isabella Weber, an economist with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Implementing policies that cause the nation’s most popular vehicle to suddenly be unaffordable would be deeply unpopular. Trump saw Democrats lose power over inflation, Weber added, and he might come up with measures to avoid hitting US consumers with the cost, like forcing foreign companies to pay part of the tariff.“Power will be their first goal,” Weber said. “Inflation undermines this.”Even with the potential cost shock, the tariffs seem to have some public appeal as a measure to protect the US auto industry. The message is especially potent when it comes to vehicles like the F-150, which holds cultural and emotional value. If Trump can implement policies to make the truck more American without hitting consumers with costs, it could be a huge win.“These are American companies and people have memories of them going back decades, so there’s a lot there for people to grab on to financially and emotionally,” Drury said. “That’s why autos are always going to be top of mind when asking ‘What are we are going to do to protect American industry?’” More

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      Mark Zuckerberg seeks ‘active role’ in Trump tech policy

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      Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump, who have previously engaged in bitter public feuds, are now warming to each other as Zuckerberg seeks to influence tech policy in the incoming administration.The Meta CEO dined at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida last week, talking technology and demonstrating the company’s camera-equipped sunglasses, Fox News reported.“Mark Zuckerberg has been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of and a participant in this change that we’re seeing all around America,” Stephen Miller, a top Trump deputy, told Fox.Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, agreed with Miller. Clegg said in a recent press call that Zuckerberg wanted to play an “active role” in the administration’s tech policy decisions and wanted to participate in “the debate that any administration needs to have about maintaining America’s leadership in the technological sphere,” particularly on artificial intelligence. Meta declined to provide further comment.The weeks since the election have seen something of a give-and-take developing between Trump and Zuckerberg, who previously banned the president-elect from Instagram and Facebook for using the platforms to incite political violence on 6 January 2021. In a move that appears in deference to Trump – who has long accused Meta of censoring conservative views – the company now says its content moderation has at times been too heavy-handed.Clegg said hindsight showed that Meta “overdid it a bit” in removing content during the Covid-19 pandemic, which Zuckerberg recently blamed on pressure from the Biden administration.“We know that when enforcing our policies, our error rates are still too high, which gets in the way of the free expression that we set out to enable,” Clegg said during the press call. “Too often, harmless content gets taken down, or restricted, and too many people get penalized unfairly.”Meta and Zuckerberg personally have shown other signs of softening towards Trump. The company lifted its ban on Trump ahead of the election, and Zuckerberg called the president-elect a “badass” for defiantly pumping a fist after being shot in July.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionZuckerberg was also among the tech leaders quick to publicly congratulate Trump following the November election – and seemed to anticipate years of collaboration ahead.“We have great opportunities ahead of us as a country,” he said in a 6 November post on Threads. “Looking forward to working with you and your administration.” More

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      AI expert Marietje Schaake: ‘The way we think about technology is shaped by the tech companies themselves’

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      Marietje Schaake is a former Dutch member of the European parliament. She is now the international policy director at Stanford University Cyber Policy Center and international policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence. Her new book is entitled The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley.In terms of power and political influence, what are the main differences between big tech and previous incarnations of big business?The difference is the role that these tech companies play in so many aspects of people’s lives: in the state, the economy, geopolitics. So while previous monopolists amassed a lot of capital and significant positions, they were usually in one sector, like oil or car production. These tech companies are like octopuses with tentacles in so many different directions. They have so much data, location data, search, communications, critical infrastructure, and now AI can be built on top of all that assembled power, which makes these companies very different animals to what we’ve seen in the past.Peter Kyle, the UK’s technology secretary, recently suggested that governments need to show a “sense of humility” with big tech companies and treat them more like nation states. What are your thoughts on that? I think it’s a baffling misunderstanding of the role of a democratically elected and accountable leader. Yes, these companies have become incredibly powerful, and as such I understand the comparison to the role of states, because increasingly these companies take decisions that used to be the exclusive domain of the state. But the answer, particularly from a government that is progressively leaning, should be to strengthen the primacy of democratic governance and oversight, and not to show humility. What is needed is self-confidence on the part of democratic government to make sure that these companies, these services, are taking their proper role within a rule of law-based system, and are not overtaking it.What do you think the impact will be of Donald Trump’s presidency? The election of Donald Trump changes everything because he has brought specific tech interests closer than any political leader ever has, especially in the United States, which is this powerful geopolitical and technological hub. There’s a lot of crypto money supporting Trump. There’s a lot of VCs [venture capitalists] supporting him, and of course he has elevated Elon Musk and has announced a deregulatory agenda. Every step taken by his administration will be informed by these factors, whether it’s the personal interests of Elon Musk and his companies, or the personal preferences of the president and his supporters. On the other hand, Musk is actually critical of some dynamics around AI, namely existential risk. We’ll have to see how long the honeymoon between him and Trump lasts, and also how other big tech companies are going to respond. Because they’re not going to be happy that Musk decides on tech policy over his competitors. I’m thinking rocky times ahead.Why have politicians been so light touch in the face of the digital technological revolution? The most powerful companies we see now were all rooted in this sort of progressive, libertarian streak of counterculture in California, that romantic narrative of a couple of guys in their shorts in a basement or garage, coding away and challenging the big powers that be: the publishers of the media companies, the hotel branches, the taxi companies, the financial services, all of which had pretty bad reputations to begin with. And surely there was room for disruption, but this kind of underdog mentality was incredibly powerful. The companies have done a really smart job of framing what they are doing as decentralising, like the internet itself. Companies like Google and Facebook have consistently argued that any regulatory step would hurt the internet. So it’s a combination of wanting to believe the promise and not appreciating how very narrow corporate interests won out at the expense of the public interest.Do you see any major politicians who are prepared to stand up to big tech interests? Well someone like [US senator] Elizabeth Warren has the most clear vision about the excessive power and abuse of power by corporations, including the tech sector. She’s been consistent in trying to address this. But broadly I’m afraid that political leaders are not really taking this on the way they should. In the European Commission, I’m not really seeing a vision. I’ve seen elections, including in my own country, where tech didn’t feature as a topic at all. And we see those comments by the UK government, although one would assume that democratic guardrails around excessively powerful corporates are a no-brainer.Have politicians been held back by their technological ignorance? Yes, I think they are intimidated. But I also think that the framing against the agency of governments is a deliberate one by tech companies. It’s important to understand the way in which we are taught to think about technology is shaped by the tech companies themselves. And so we get the whole narrative that governments are basically disqualified to deal with tech because they’re too stupid, too outdated, too poor in service delivery. The message is that if they can’t even process the taxes on time, what do you think they’re going to do with AI? It’s a caricature of government, and government should not embrace that caricature.Do you think the UK has been weakened in its position with big tech as a result of leaving the EU? Yes and no. Australia and Canada have developed tech policies, and they’re smaller in numbers than the UK population. I don’t know if it’s that. I think it’s actually much more of a deliberate choice to want to attract investment. So maybe it’s just self-interest that transcends Conservative and Labour governments, because I don’t see much change in the tech policy, whereas I had anticipated change. I was obviously overly optimistic there.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionYou talk about regaining sovereignty. Do you think most people even recognise that any sovereignty has been lost? One of the reasons why I wrote this book is to reach average news readers, not tech experts. Explaining that this is a problem that concerns people is a huge undertaking. I’m curious to see how the impact of the Trump government will invite responses from European leaders, but also from others around the world who are simply going to think we cannot afford this dependence on US tech companies. It’s undesirable. Because, essentially, we’re shipping our euros or pounds over to Silicon Valley, and what do we get in return? More dependency. It’s going to be incredibly challenging, but not doing anything is certainly not going to make it better.

      The Tech Coup by Marietje Schaake is published by Princeton University Press (£22). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply More