The United States has warned the European Union that its companies could face “devastating” retaliation in the American market if Brussels follows through on a plan to reserve a key slice of satellite-to-smartphone radio spectrum for European operators.
The warning came from Andrew Puzder, Washington’s ambassador to the EU, in an interview with the Financial Times released on Sunday. Puzder said European businesses “should be wary” of countermeasures, cautioning that the fallout could prove “very devastating” given the sheer size of the US market.
At the heart of the row is the 2 gigahertz band — the portion of the radio spectrum that lets an ordinary mobile phone connect directly to a satellite overhead, without needing a ground tower. The European Commission proposed on May 27 that much of this band be ring-fenced for European providers once the current licences expire.
The proposal would hit hardest at the companies building satellite phone services now: SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s satellite business, Leo. SpaceX has already criticised the planned restrictions, warning they could undercut connectivity in Ukraine, where Starlink has carried much of the country’s civilian and military communications since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Puzder was blunt about Washington’s reading of the proposal:
“If the purpose is to make the United States less competitive, I think that that’s not a legitimate goal of this kind of legislation. You don’t make European companies more competitive by making US companies less competitive.”
He acknowledged that Europe has every right to shield sensitive government information, but argued the rules must not be turned into a tool for sidelining American competitors — and he questioned whether Brussels enforces its Digital Markets Act, the EU’s big-tech competition law, to promote fair competition or simply to collect fines from US technology companies.
What the Commission actually wants
The details matter, because the Commission is not proposing to kick Starlink out of Europe outright. Under the draft plan, the 2 GHz band would be carved into six blocks once the licences held since 2009 by Viasat and EchoStar expire in May 2027.
One third would go to government, security and defence services — tied to IRIS², the EU’s own planned secure satellite constellation, which Brussels hopes will give Europe a sovereign alternative to American networks. Of the two-thirds left for commercial use, half would be prioritised for European operators. That leaves non-EU firms, at most, roughly a third of the band to fight over — and the draft caps every commercial winner at the same ceiling.
It is still a long way from law. The proposal needs to pass the European Parliament and the Council, where the selection criteria and access conditions remain under negotiation. As one analyst noted, the retaliation threat is a warning shot, not a measure already imposed.
The Ukraine connection
The timing is awkward. Days before Puzder spoke, Poland pushed for its own sovereign alternative — a “Polish Starlink” built with the Polish space company ICEYE and defence group PGZ. And the dispute arrives in the middle of a bitter US-Ukraine argument over Starlink: Kyiv says Washington is throttling its military internet with a 161 km/h speed cap, just weeks after US intelligence sharing was cut off for three days and then restored.
Brussels, for its part, frames the whole reform as a matter of sustainability, security and competitiveness — part of a broader sovereignty push that also produced a Tech Sovereignty Package in June. Puzder urged the two sides to cooperate instead, warning that regulatory feuds risk undermining shared interests in the race against China in artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
Why this matters beyond Brussels and Washington
Satellite-to-phone connectivity is shaping up to be one of the defining technology markets of the decade: for hundreds of millions of people in rural Africa, Asia and Latin America, a phone that reaches the sky directly could be the first reliable connection they ever get. Whoever writes the spectrum rules in Europe will influence how every other big market — India, Brazil, the Gulf states — writes theirs.
The deeper question is whether the West’s technology stack is splitting at the moment it most needs to hold together. Europe wants out from under dependence on American networks; Washington reads that as discrimination; and while the two sides argue over megahertz, China is racing ahead on its own satellite constellations. Puzder’s “devastating” warning may end up doing what threats often do in trade wars: hardening the other side’s resolve to build alternatives faster.
“Brussels needs to be careful,” the ambassador said. Brussels, which has spent years telling Washington that Europe must stand on its own feet, will likely read that as a reason to do exactly the opposite.
