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Donald Trump ripped into a reporter from the US network ABC News on Tuesday, just days after calling another woman journalist “piggy” after she asked a question related to the convicted sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein.Trump threatened ABC’s broadcast license after reporter Mary Bruce posed questions during a White House visit by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.The earlier incident involving Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey happened a few days ago on Air Force One, but only came to light on social media on Tuesday.”Quiet. Quiet, piggy,” Trump said to Lucey on Friday, pointing his finger at her, after she asked him why he would not release material on disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein “if there’s nothing incriminating in the files.”CNN journalist Jake Tapper called Trump’s “piggy” comment “disgusting and completely unacceptable.”On Tuesday, Trump singled out ABC News’s Bruce after she asked a series of questions in the Oval Office as the US president hosted the de facto Saudi ruler in a high-profile event.Bruce first asked questions about whether dealings by Trump’s family business with the Saudis were a conflict of interest.She then quizzed Prince Mohammed over the 2018 murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying “US intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist, 9/11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you?”Trump cut in angrily, saying: “ABC fake news. One of the worst in the business.”- ‘No more questions’ -The president then said he has “nothing to do” with the Trump organization, which is currently run by his two eldest sons and which announced a deal with a Saudi developer for a resort in the Maldives on Monday.Trump also backed Prince Mohammed’s denial of involvement in the Khashoggi murder, despite US intelligence suggesting he approved the operation. “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that,” Trump snapped.Trump boiled over again when Bruce later asked about the flashpoint issue of Epstein. Congress voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to order the release of files about the financier, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.”It’s not the question that I mind. It’s your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter,” Trump shot back at Bruce.Trump said he had “nothing to do” with Epstein and repeated his claim that the scandal is a “hoax.”And “your crappy company is one of the perpetrators,” he told her.Trump urged the head of the US broadcast regulator — who has previously threatened ABC over its content — to “look at” taking away its license.He then pointed at Bruce: “No more questions from you.”

The “Epstein Files,” sealed for years and the object of frenzied speculation, are one step closer to being released to the public.Both the US House of Representatives and Senate moved Tuesday to order the release of government files related to the investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.The wealthy and well-connected financier died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking underage girls.But his death did nothing to staunch the furor over his connections with high-profile business executives, celebrities and politicians, including former close friend President Donald Trump.So what exactly are the Epstein Files?- Epstein Files -The Epstein Files refer to the reams of evidence amassed by the Justice Department and FBI during a probe in Florida that led to his 2008 conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution and the investigation that led to his later indictment in New York.Only a sliver of the government material has ever been released publicly, and a slew of revelations about Epstein in recent days comes from email traffic surrendered by his estate.The Epstein Files Transparency Act passed by the House and Senate calls for the release within 30 days of “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” in the possession of the Justice Department, the FBI and US attorneys’ offices related to Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting underage girls for Epstein.She was the only person convicted in connection with the disgraced financier, but Trump’s MAGA supporters have held as an article of faith for years that “deep state” elites were protecting Epstein associates in the Democratic Party and Hollywood.- The FBI/DOJ memo -The FBI and Justice Department triggered a political furor in July with the release of a memo stating that after an “exhaustive review” there would be no further disclosures of evidence from the investigative files on Epstein.The FBI/DOJ memo said there was “no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions” or had a “client list.”Epstein personally “harmed over one thousand victims,” the FBI and DOJ said, but “we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”Digital searches of Epstein’s electronic devices and physical searches of his various properties, which included a private Caribbean island, had yielded a “significant amount of material, including more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence,” the memo said.- Trump and Epstein -Trump campaigned for the White House on a pledge to release the Epstein files and could have done so at any time since taking office without congressional intervention.But Trump changed his mind about releasing the files after entering the White House in January and only backed their disclosure this week after it became clear that Congress was going to vote for their release.Before reversing course, the Republican president ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to open an investigation into connections between Epstein and leading Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton.Clinton, like Trump, was once close to Epstein but neither man has been accused of any wrongdoing.Bondi immediately assigned the task to a prosecutor in New York and the move could potentially complicate the release of some of the material in the files or cause it to be heavily redacted.The House bill allows the withholding of material that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.”

US lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Tuesday for releasing government files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, after President Donald Trump dropped his opposition to opening the books on a scandal that has roiled politics, law enforcement and the country’s elite.The president had put allies in Congress under intense pressure not to make the material public, but the Republican leader threw in the towel over the weekend as it became clear that much of his party was poised to defy him.Congress approved the Epstein Files Transparency Act almost unanimously — compelling publication of unclassified documents detailing the investigation into the disgraced financier’s operations and jailhouse death, which was ruled a suicide.Lawmakers say the public deserves answers in a case with over 1,000 alleged victims.Trump says the files will expose powerful Democrats’ connections to Epstein, but the president himself faces uncomfortable scrutiny over his years-long friendship with the man alleged to have supplied underage girls to rich and influential men.The bill passed the House earlier Tuesday with just one dissenter out of 428 members voting, and the Senate agreed to rubber-stamp and bounce the text straight to the White House, without a hand-count vote, as soon as it arrives from the lower chamber. Trump has pledged not to veto the legislation, but Washington-watchers are not expecting imminent damning new revelations.The Justice Department has wide latitude to hold back information if its release “would jeopardize an active federal investigation.”Meanwhile Trump, in a widely criticized intervention last week, ordered officials to probe Epstein’s ties with high-profile Democrats.The saga has exposed rare fissures in support for the Republican leader, who previously campaigned on releasing the files but changed course after taking office, accusing Democrats of pushing a “hoax.”After multiple attempts by Republican leaders to block the vote, all Democrats and four Republicans signed a “discharge petition” — an extraordinary procedure forcing the bill to the House floor against the wishes of leadership.Relenting on his longstanding resistance, Trump said on social media late Sunday that Republicans should vote to release the files “because we have nothing to hide.””I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump told reporters Tuesday at an Oval Office event with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert.”- Long association -However, Trump had a well documented relationship with Epstein, who was famous for throwing parties and other networking opportunities for the rich and powerful.The U-turn marks a rare occasion when a revolt from Trump’s allies has forced his hand, and Epstein survivors at a news conference ahead of the vote questioned the president’s motives.”I can’t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is,” said Haley Robson, who was recruited to massage Epstein when she was 16. “I am traumatized — I am not stupid.”At the time of his death, Epstein was facing federal trial over an alleged sex trafficking operation said to have exploited underage girls and young women, following a 2008 conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution.For years, Trump’s right-wing movement encouraged followers to believe that the government was covering up a major conspiracy.But Trump’s Justice Department said in July officials had completed an “exhaustive review” of the case and had “no basis to revisit the disclosure” of any Epstein materials.The White House escalated efforts last week to mothball the vote, with Trump and his allies making last-minute appeals to two of Republican signers of the discharge petition.This caused an uproar in Trump’s base.The rupture widened when Trump pulled his endorsement of top loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene in a stunning break that she said “has all come down to the Epstein files.””The real test will be, will the Department of Justice release the files? Or will it all remain tied up in investigations?” she said at the news conference.

The “Epstein Files,” sealed for years and the object of frenzied speculation, are one step closer to being released to the public.The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to order the release of government files related to the investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.The wealthy and well-connected financier died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking underage girls.But his death did nothing to staunch the furor over his connections with high-profile business executives, celebrities and politicians, including former close friend President Donald Trump.So what exactly are the Epstein Files?- Epstein Files -The Epstein Files refer to the reams of evidence amassed by the Justice Department and FBI during a probe in Florida that led to his 2008 conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution and the investigation that led to his later indictment in New York.Only a sliver of the government material has ever been released publicly, and a slew of revelations about Epstein in recent days comes from email traffic surrendered by his estate.The Epstein Files Transparency Act passed by the House calls for the release within 30 days of “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” in the possession of the Justice Department, the FBI and US attorneys’ offices related to Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting underage girls for Epstein.She was the only person convicted in connection with the disgraced financier, but Trump’s MAGA supporters have held as an article of faith for years that “deep state” elites were protecting Epstein associates in the Democratic Party and Hollywood.- The FBI/DOJ memo -The FBI and Justice Department triggered a political furor in July with the release of a memo stating that after an “exhaustive review” there would be no further disclosures of evidence from the investigative files on Epstein.The FBI/DOJ memo said there was “no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions” or had a “client list.”Epstein personally “harmed over one thousand victims,” the FBI and DOJ said, but “we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”Digital searches of Epstein’s electronic devices and physical searches of his various properties, which included a private Caribbean island, had yielded a “significant amount of material, including more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence,” the memo said.- Trump and Epstein -Trump campaigned for the White House on a pledge to release the Epstein files and could have done so at any time since taking office without congressional intervention.But Trump changed his mind about releasing the files after entering the White House in January and only backed their disclosure this week after it became clear that Congress was going to vote for their release.Before reversing course, the Republican president ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to open an investigation into connections between Epstein and leading Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton.Clinton, like Trump, was once close to Epstein but neither man has been accused of any wrongdoing.Bondi immediately assigned the task to a prosecutor in New York and the move could potentially complicate the release of some of the material in the files or cause it to be heavily redacted.The House bill allows the withholding of material that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.”

Major websites including social network X and AI chatbot ChatGPT were disrupted on Tuesday after US online services provider Cloudflare said it had been affected by a “latent bug”.Web monitor Downdetector recorded disruptions for users of X, video game “League of Legends” and some services from Google and OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.Cloudflare, which specialises in online security and says it manages some 20 percent of global internet traffic, saw its share price slump 1.5 percent in early trading. “Earlier today we failed our customers and the broader internet when a problem in Cloudflare network impacted large amounts of traffic that rely on us,” chief technology officer Dane Knecht wrote on X, adding that the problem had since been resolved.”In short, a latent bug in a service underpinning our bot mitigation capability started to crash after a routine configuration change we made.”The company said earlier there had been “a spike in unusual traffic” to one of its services.The outage was reminiscent of those that hit Amazon (AWS) and Microsoft cloud services last month, disrupting some online services for video games, businesses and transport firms.”This incident, as with the recent outage at AWS, shows how reliant some very important internet-based services are on a relatively few major players,” said Alan Woodward, professor of cybersecurity at the University of Surrey in England.”It’s a double-edged sword as these service providers need to be large to provide the scale and global reach required by big brands. But when they fail the impact can be significant.”The CloudFlare outage is the latest in a trend of infrastructure providers going offline and taking swaths of the internet with them, according to Emarketer analyst Jacob Bourne.While Cloudflare carries about a fifth of global internet traffic, it touches a third of the world’s top websites – powering retailers like Shopify and AI providers like OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as smartphone apps and streaming services, the analyst noted.”We’re seeing outages happen more frequently, and they’re taking longer to fix,” Bourne said.”That’s a symptom of strained infrastructure: increased AI load, streaming demand, and aging capacity all pushing systems past the edge.”The latest outage spotlights the importance of seemingly mundane internet infrastructure to the “AI Revolution”, according to Cornell University Tech Policy Institute director Sarah Kreps.”The issue exposes the reality that this multi-billion, even trillion dollar investment in AI is only as reliable as its least scrutinized third party infrastructure,” Kreps said.Knecht put out word on X that by day’s end Cloudflare will share details of what went wrong along with what the company plans to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

An infuriated Donald Trump threatened a US network’s broadcast license Tuesday after its reporter asked questions about his family’s business and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal at a high-profile White House event.ABC News reporter Mary Bruce posed the questions as Trump hosted Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was linked by the CIA to the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.Bruce asked about allegations of inappropriate Middle East deal-making by Trump’s family business.Media reports have highlighted deals being discussed between the Trump Organization and Saudi partners, including a luxury resort development in the Maldives.Bruce also quizzed Prince Mohammed, saying “US intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist, 9/11 families are furious that you’re here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you?””ABC fake news. One of the worst in the business,” Trump cut in angrily.The president said he has “nothing to do with the family business,” currently run by his two eldest sons.- ‘Piggy’ insult -He also backed Prince Mohammed’s denial of involvement in the Khashoggi murder, despite US intelligence suggesting he approved the operation.”You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that,” Trump snapped.Bruce later asked about the flashpoint issue of late sex offender Epstein.Trump’s links to the financier have dogged him for months after his supporters previously fanned flames of conspiracies over Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.”It’s not the question that I mind. It’s your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter,” Trump shot back at Bruce.”I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” the president said, repeating his claim that the scandal is a “hoax.”And “your crappy company is one of the perpetrators,” he told her.”I’ll tell you something. I think the license should be taken away from ABC, because your news is so fake and it’s so wrong,” he added.He urged the head of the US broadcast regulator — who has previously threatened ABC over its content — to “look at that.”He then pointed at Bruce: “No more questions from you.”The latest clash comes after the president called another female reporter “piggy” last week when she asked about Epstein.

US President Donald Trump defended Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Tuesday over the 2018 killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi as he wooed the key ally with a lavish welcome to the White House.Trump insisted the de facto Saudi leader “knew nothing” about the killing of the Washington Post columnist, after greeting the prince with a flypast of F-35 stealth fighters which he has promised to sell to Riyadh.The Saudi royal, who came bearing a pledge of a $1 trillion investment in the United States on his first US visit since the killing, said Khashoggi’s murder was “painful” and a “huge mistake.”A US intelligence assessment in 2021 concluded that Prince Mohammed had ordered the operation to kill Khashoggi, who was murdered and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.Saudi officials blamed rogue agents.The killing during Trump’s first term caused a diplomatic crisis at the time, but the US president made it clear he now wanted to brush over it as he boosts his relationship with the Saudis.Trump raged at a journalist who asked the prince about the murder in the Oval Office. He called Khashoggi “extremely controversial” and accused the reporter who asked the question of embarrassing the Saudi visitor.”Things happened, but he knew nothing about it,” Trump said of the Saudi prince. “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.”- ‘No justification’ -The journalist’s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, said in response to Trump’s comments that there was “no justification to murder my husband.”She also urged the Saudi prince in a post on social media to “meet me, apologize and compensate me” for the killing of her spouse.Trump, 79, pulled out all the stops to impress Prince Mohammed, 40, giving him a parade of soldiers on horseback and thundering cannon fire on his arrival at the White House.The Republican then showed the prince a new gallery of presidential portraits by the Rose Garden — including one portraying his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden as an autopen.The flattery continued inside the Oval Office, as Trump called the Saudi a “very good friend” and hailed him as being “incredible, in terms of human rights, and everything else.” The heir to the throne then delighted Trump by announcing that he was increasing the $600 billion Saudi investment he promised Trump when the US president visited the country in May.”We can announce that we are going to increase that $600 billion to almost $1 trillion for investment,” he said.The two countries were also set to seal a host of deals on defense, energy and AI, the White House said, including a deal on a framework for civilian nuclear cooperation.- Abraham Accords -Trump said he had also pushed Prince Mohammed to normalize relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords, as he seeks to turn the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza into a longer-lasting regional peace.The Saudi said he wanted to join the accords — Trump’s signature diplomatic achievement during his first term — but first needed a “clear path” to Palestinian statehood.Trump meanwhile reiterated his intention to sell Saudi Arabia coveted F-35 stealth fighters, despite concerns from Israel and warnings from US officials that China could steal the technology.The pomp was set to continue later in the day as First Lady Melania Trump hosts a gala dinner for the Saudi leader. Portugal soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo, who plays in Saudi Arabia, will also be at the White House, a US official told AFP.Prince Mohammed has fostered close ties with Trump and his family over the years, including through investment pledges to the property billionaire-turned-US president.Trump denied any conflicts of interest, a day after a Saudi developer announced a new hotel partnership in the Maldives with the Trump Organization, which is run by his sons.”I have nothing to do with the family business. I have left,” Trump said.

A US judge dismissed the federal government’s antitrust lawsuit against Meta on Tuesday, ruling that the tech giant’s acquisition of Instagram and Whatsapp did not constitute an illegal monopoly in social media.The ruling delivered a major victory to Meta after a five-year battle that began when the US agency filed suit claiming the company illegally maintained its monopoly by acquiring Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to eliminate competitive threats.Judge James Boasberg of the federal district court in Washington concluded that Meta faces sufficient competition from rivals TikTok and YouTube, preventing the company from exercising monopoly power in the social media market.The FTC had argued that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and minor player MeWe competed in a distinct market of connecting friends and family that was separate from video entertainment platforms like TikTok and YouTube.The US government argued that this hold on friends and family offered a unique ability to build out Meta products and rake in billions of dollars in profits every quarter.But Boasberg found that distinction no longer holds in today’s social media landscape.”Meta holds no monopoly in the relevant market,” the judge declared, noting that Facebook and Instagram have transformed in recent years to primarily show users short videos recommended by algorithms — nearly identical to TikTok’s core offering.The court cited data that Americans now spend only 17 percent of their time on Facebook viewing content from friends, with that figure dropping to just seven percent on Instagram.Instead, users predominantly watch “Reels” — short videos from strangers recommended by AI.”Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have thus evolved to have nearly identical main features,” Boasberg wrote, citing evidence showing that users treat these platforms as substitutes.Meta welcomed the judge’s recognition that the company “faces fierce competition” and said it looked forward to working with the Trump administration “and to invest in America.”Ahead of the trial that began in April, Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg had made repeated visits to the White House as he tried to persuade President Donald Trump against allowing the FTC to fight the trial.The trial did take place, with Zuckerberg and several top Meta executives brought to the stand.- ‘Intense competition’ -The ruling represents a setback for US antitrust enforcers who have pursued aggressive action against Big Tech companies, with mixed results in court.As part of that push, the US government has launched five major cases against tech giants, including two against Google and suits against Apple and Amazon.A different US judge in September rejected a government bid to break up Google, after the search engine juggernaut was found to have acted as an illegal monopoly.The judge in that case was swayed by similar arguments that Google’s hold on the search engine market was under threat by new actors — ChatGPT and other AI upstarts in Google’s case.”Judge Boasberg correctly grasps how dynamic digital markets are,” said Vidushi Dyall of the Chamber of Progress, a big tech lobby.”Even large tech companies still face intense competition and…new players have disrupted the position of incumbents,” Dyall wrote on X.

Donald Trump defended Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of a journalist and hailed a $1 trillion investment pledge Tuesday as the US president laid on a lavish welcome at the White House.Trump moved to consolidate his growing bromance with the de facto Saudi leader, giving him a parade of soldiers on horseback and a military flypast featuring F-35 jets that he said Washington would soon sell to Riyadh.Opening their White House meeting with praise for the prince’s “incredible” human rights record, Trump dismissed the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, saying “things happened” and calling the dead journalist “extremely controversial.”Trump also raged at a reporter, accusing her of “embarrassing” Prince Mohammed with her questions over the murder — which US intelligence has suggested the prince approved — and saying the visiting royal knew “nothing about it.” The Saudi prince responded by saying the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was a “huge mistake,” while insisting it had been fully investigated.The heir to the throne then delighted Trump by announcing that he was increasing the $600 billion Saudi investment he promised Trump when the US president visited the country in May.”We can announce that we are going to increase that $600 billion to almost $1 trillion for investment,” Prince Mohammed said in the Oval Office.A grinning Trump asked him to confirm the figure, to which the Saudi royal replied: “Definitely.”- Rose Garden tour -Trump pulled out all the stops for the Saudi prince, giving him treatment normally reserved for a state visit to the White House, despite the fact that he is not a head of state.He welcomed bin Salman — who is widely known as MBS — on the South Lawn of the White House as cannon fire boomed out, before they watched the noisy flypast by US military jets.The 79-year-old Republican then showed the prince a new gallery of presidential portraits by the Rose Garden — including one portraying his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden as an autopen.Trump has accused an ageing Biden of using the automated device to sign presidential pardons, and questioned their legality.Later in the day First Lady Melania Trump will hold a gala dinner.Portugal soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo, who plays in Saudi Arabia, will also be at the White House for the gala day of events, a White House official told AFP.The president has made a priority of boosting ties with the oil-rich Gulf kingdom, particularly as he seeks to turn the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza into a longer-lasting regional peace.Trump said he had pushed the prince to normalize relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords that he launched in his first term.Prince Mohammed said he was working to do so “as soon as possible” but insisted on securing a “clear path of two-state solution” for a Palestinian state first.- ‘Destroyed my life’ -Trump meanwhile reiterated his intention to sell Saudi Arabia coveted F-35 stealth fighters, despite concerns from Israel and warnings from US officials that China could steal technological knowledge about the jets. In another area of past contention, Trump will sign a deal on a framework for civilian nuclear cooperation, a US official and a source familiar with the negotiations said.The 40-year-old prince has fostered close ties with Trump and his family over the years, including through investment pledges to the property billionaire-turned-US president.But the shadow of Khashoggi’s murder during Trump’s first term, which sparked global outrage and chilled relations between Washington and Riyadh for years, hung over the meeting.Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, told CNN that her husband’s killing had “destroyed my life.””I hope they look at the American values of human rights and (democracy)” besides any deal and selling weapons, she said.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron vowed Tuesday to help Europe catch up in the AI race and unshackle the continent from a heavy reliance on US tech titans.Speaking at a Berlin summit attended by regional tech firms and investors, the leaders of Europe’s biggest economies also backed the EU’s expected rollback of digital rules that many firms complain are holding them back.European companies pledged more than 12 billion euros ($13.9 billion euros) investment in the digital sector at the event, according to Merz, as the continent seeks to catch up with the United States and China in the AI race.”Europe doesn’t want to be the client of the big entrepreneurs or the big solutions being provided either from the US or from China, we clearly want to design our own solutions,” Macron said, adding that this stance represented “a refusal of being a vassal”.Merz called for Europe to “join forces and forge its own digital path — and this path must lead to digital sovereignty”.”Digital sovereignty has costs, but the costs of digital dependence are even higher,” said the chancellor. – Uneasy US ties -Europe is responding to calls to blaze its own digital path as concerns escalate about US tech dominance at a time of increasingly uneasy ties with Washington under the “America First” administration of Donald Trump.Despite the US-Europe tensions, a senior official from the French presidency earlier said the summit was not about “confrontation” with the United States or even China, but rather protecting “our core sovereignty”.Amid concerns that onerous rules are hobbling European tech firms, France and Germany said they are pushing for a “simple, innovation-friendly and competitive EU regulatory framework”, according to a statement from Berlin after the summit.They are calling specifically for a 12-month postponement for parts of the EU’s AI law, and simplifications of the bloc’s flagship data protection rules, it said. The EU is expected to propose a rollback in these areas Wednesday — a move welcomed by businesses, but criticised by privacy advocates.Macron also urged preference to be given to European tech companies when handing out contracts, in particular from the public sector. “Because guess what? The Chinese have a Chinese exclusivity … and the Americans have a very strong American preference,” he said.- Sensitive data -Calls have been growing for European firms to be more often given the job of handling sensitive data of the region’s citizens, rather than handing it to foreign cloud computing giants.Earlier at the summit, the EU’s digital chief announced that Amazon and Microsoft cloud services could face stricter competition rules in the bloc as Brussels probes their market power.Digital ministers from across Europe, as well as CEOs of tech firms like France’s Mistral and Germany’s SAP, took part in the summit.A total of 18 new partnerships between companies and the AI sector were unveiled at the summit, according to an EU initiative for promoting the technology.This ranged from a tie-up between SAP and Mistral on a providing “sovereign” services, to deals involving carmaker Mercedes-Benz and insurer Allianz, it said.As well as worrying about US dependence, Europe has long-standing concerns about reliance on firms in China and other parts of Asia for hardware, from semiconductors to laptop components.But the continent faces an uphill battle to switch supply chains from foreign companies in the digital realm.The region is struggling after a period of prolonged economic weakness and its tech firms remain far smaller than their US rivals.As of last year, the continent’s data centres — crucial for AI — had computing capacity of just 16 gigawatts, compared with 48 in the US and 38 in China, according to a recent study by German digital business association Bitkom.But SAP CEO Christian Klein struck an upbeat note.”We have our own industries that we are good at,” he said during a panel at the summit. “Let’s apply AI in these battlegrounds, then Europe has a bright future.”