FCC chair frames EU tech choice: Starlink or China?

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, an architect of Project 2025’s telecom agenda and President Trump’s pick to lead the agency, delivered a recent blunt message to Europe: adopt Elon Musk’s Starlink or inevitably align with Chinese tech. Accusing EU regulators of “anti-American bias,” Carr’s “time for choosing” ultimatum injects geopolitical tension into transatlantic tech policy. It also signals potential upheaval for R&D partnerships and critical infrastructure decisions.

Carr’s remarks land amid sharply escalating US-China trade friction. Just weeks prior, President Trump enacted sweeping 145% tariffs covering virtually all Chinese imports, prompting immediate 125% retaliatory duties from Beijing on U.S. goods. This exchange brought a string of export-focused Chinese businesses, such as those supplying U.S. retailers, to a production standstill. It also drew defiant vows from China to fight the trade war “until the end.”

EU has expressed Starlink skepticism

It’s within this tense global climate that Carr champions Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet service, as the West’s strategic bulwark. Europe has displayed some skepticism to that claim, thanks in part to recent controversies surrounding the network’s reliability and political entanglements. European authorities have pursued a local alternative to the services, as WSJ recently noted, after Musk reportedly restricted Starlink service during critical Ukrainian military operations. A February 2025 Reuters report also alleged U.S. officials considered cutting Ukraine’s access as leverage. This unease crystallized in March when Italy’s government stalled a €1.5 billion defense contract with Starlink, explicitly citing political concerns over Musk and U.S. control.

The EU is pouring billions into its own LEO constellation project, IRIS², aiming to guarantee sovereign connectivity. At the same time, established European players like France’s Eutelsat (merged with OneWeb) and Luxembourg’s SES are positioning themselves as stable, politically neutral alternatives. They appear eager to capture contracts from governments and telcos wary of Starlink’s entanglement in U.S. politics—even if analysts acknowledge their current networks don’t yet match Starlink’s scale.

Potentially evolving R&D priorities

The emergence of viable European alternatives and the perceived risks surrounding Starlink could directly reshape transatlantic R&D priorities. Expect increased European investment in satellite cybersecurity and resilient network architectures designed to counter political interference or disruption. We may also see accelerated joint R&D ventures between European telecom operators and satellite firms like Eutelsat or SES to build integrated, trusted communication backbones. For U.S. firms like SpaceX, this environment necessitates R&D focused not just on capability, but on demonstrating security and political neutrality to regain European confidence.

Carr, however, dismisses these European anxieties as misplaced, characterizing them as evidence of entrenched “protectionism” and an “anti-American” attitude within the EU bureaucracy. He argues that focusing on Starlink’s isolated incidents—or investing billions in potentially less capable sovereign systems—ignores the larger strategic imperative against China. Ars Technica quotes him: “If you’re concerned about Starlink, just wait for the CCP’s version, then you’ll be really worried.”

Elon Musk’s own defenses are broadly similar; while Musk acknowledged limiting Starlink’s use near Crimea to avoid escalating conflict, he vehemently denied the Reuters report about a potential U.S.-ordered cutoff as false. Carr and Musk have also claimed that the Biden administration unfairly denied Starlink $885 million in rural broadband subsidies.

Context for Starlink views

Carr’s stance isn’t new; it directly reflects priorities he detailed in his Project 2025 chapter for the FCC. There, he outlined a mandate to aggressively confront “national security threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” proposing bans on insecure gear and closing loopholes allowing entities like China Telecom to operate unregulated in the US. Simultaneously, Carr championed LEO satellite networks as key to “Unleashing Economic Prosperity,” highlighting “a new generation of low-earth orbit satellite services like StarLink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper [that] stand to offer highspeed home broadband in competition with legacy providers.” In the chapter, he identified these constellations as among the “most significant technological developments” with potential to “disrupt the federal regulatory and subsidy regime.” He also advocated for expedited FCC approvals to “Advance America’s space leadership” and prevent the U.S. from “ceding space leadership” to rivals.

Carr’s focus extends beyond satellite dominance, reflecting a broader Project 2025 industrial strategy aimed at reshoring critical technology supply chains. He explicitly urged European telecom giants Nokia and Ericsson to shift more manufacturing to the U.S., potentially dangling faster regulatory clearances as an incentive while implicitly taking advantage of the threat of Trump’s import tariffs. This pressure underscores a potential transatlantic realignment of telecom R&D and manufacturing, pushing key innovation clusters toward the U.S. as part of the “America First” agenda.