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SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. Mike Lee said he thinks the U.S. should reconsider its relationship with European allies because of the way the European Union has used its regulatory authority against American businesses.
Lee is upset over a letter sent by EU Commissioner Thierry Breton to Elon Musk ahead of Musk's interview with former President Donald Trump, but Lee said that is not the only reason he is reconsidering the relationship, including NATO.
"To be clear, my position is we should at least consider changing our relationship," said Lee during a phone interview with the Deseret News, adding there are a lot of considerations to weigh before making that decision.
"It makes sense to me that we should at least have a conversation about our involvement in NATO and about whether we ought to be funding it to the degree that we are," said Lee. "Or whether we should consider withdrawing if they are agreeable to those terms."
Lee also said it would be worth having a conversation about the U.S.'s trade relationship with the EU. He said the objective should be free trade, but the U.S. should examine whether or not it gets fair terms.
Why reconsider the relationship
After Breton released the letter, it received criticism, including from X CEO Linda Yaccarino who called it "an unprecedented attempt to stretch a law intended to apply in Europe to political activities in the US."
"Four separate EU officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Breton's warning to Musk had surprised many within the Commission," reported Mark Scott for Politico. "The bloc's enforcers were still investigating the platform for potential wrongdoing and the EU did not want to be seen as potentially interfering in the U.S. presidential election."
The EU's investigation into X was opened in 2023.
The letter from the EU commissioner is "not the first time when the EU has flexed its regulatory muscle against American businesses operating in Europe," said Lee. Sometimes they have done so in circumstances involving constitutionally protected activity, but other times it is through their competition laws.
Compared to the United States' antitrust laws, Lee said the EU's competition laws focus on protecting European competitors more than protecting competition itself. He said this could impact American interests.
Lee said the EU commissioner's letter did not include an acknowledgement of free speech rights — it did not consider if European citizens wanted to to receive the information, or the right of companies operating in Europe to host speech, or how Americans' rights could be impacted.
Not every country has the First Amendment and freedom of speech, said Lee. "It would be a mistake to say it's completely unique to us. There are a whole lot of countries that don't have it, including a whole lot of countries that we think we have a lot in common with."
Speech laws are generally more restrictive in Europe than in America, Reason reported. Under EU law, private platforms have enforceable duties "to purge 'hate speech' and 'disinformation.'"
In addition to expressing concerns about freedom of speech, Lee also said he believes the letter was "a bold-faced effort to interfere in and influence the outcome of a live campaign."
"There was no acknowledgment in that letter whatsoever, recognizing that this would have far more of a burden on the United States, far more of an impact on the United States than it would on Europe," said Lee.
He said the letter was an attempt to interfere with a constitutionally protected activity and an attempt to influence a U.S. presidential election.
"The problem is they're using government authority to impact the conduct and speech of Americans based on an incidental connection to an incidental impact on European citizens," said Lee.
That is why Lee thinks, on top of other already existing concerns, the U.S. should reconsider the relationship as a whole.
"We've been footing a disproportionate share of Europe's security bills for decades," said Lee, adding because the U.S. contributes so much to Europe's security needs, additional resources are freed up.
Any time we undertake a mutual defense treaty with any country or a whole bunch of countries in the case of NATO, we've always got to be looking at the cost-benefit ratio and what this means.
–Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah
Lee said these resources are used against American interests.
"We've been funding through the back door all sorts of things that they do, including their regulatory efforts, which they sought to abuse through the EU, and also, including a lot of social welfare programs," he said.
When asked about whether or not his colleagues in Congress would be open to the conversation, Lee said he thinks there will be an openness to the conversation with a spectrum of responses.
Some of his colleagues will not want to change the relationship at all and others may be opening to reframing the NATO Article 5 obligation, Lee said. This obligation states that whenever a NATO member country comes under attack, the U.S. has an obligation to defend that country.
"I think any time we undertake a mutual defense treaty with any country or a whole bunch of countries in the case of NATO, we've always got to be looking at the cost-benefit ratio and what this means," said Lee. "And the extent to which our interests are so thoroughly aligned that we should be willing, at the drop of a hat, to expend U.S. blood and treasure in defending somebody else."
But other Republican lawmakers, while critical of countries that do not spend the required 2% of their federal budgets on defense, are supportive of the NATO alliance. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in February he was a "big fan" of NATO, and Idaho Sen. Jim Risch said last year nothing gives the U.S. "better security than the NATO organization." In 2022, around 70% of the House GOP voted to reaffirm support for NATO .
The Senate overwhelmingly voted to ratify membership for Sweden and Finland into NATO — Lee voted for it. Only Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley voted against the resolution and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul voted present.
