Well, yes, since long before the current administration. It's mentioned multiple times (with examples) in the European Parliament's "The Echelon Affair" report.[0] But it seems to me that this is not really what you're asking, but rather you're implying that there's no justification for this move other than European protectionism. If this is the case, I would argue that a sitting administration actively threatening with the invasion of your territories is a compelling argument for politicians and business leaders to evaluate alternatives.

[0] https://historicalarchives.europarl.europa.eu/files/live/sit...

You don’t need an espionage case to decide a provider is too much risk.

The political unreliability alone is enough. Just takes one orange guy waking up in a foul mood one day and doing something erratic. That increases risk for using anything American across the board even if the individual companies have done nothing wrong

We have a proven case of USA pulling the plug. Not sure which is worse.

From the NY Times, 1995:

> Spying on allies for economic advantage is a crucial new assignment for the C.I.A. now that American foreign policy is focused on commercial interests abroad. President Clinton made economic intelligence a high priority of his Administration, specifically information to protect and defend American competitiveness, technology and financial security in a world where an economic crisis can spread across global markets in minutes

At the time "only" to have the upper hand in trade negotiations, and presumably when "having the President press foreign countries to award business to American firms", as they call it. But that was 30 years ago, and trust that these these things aren't directly forwarded to US private industry is in short supply these days

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/15/world/emerging-role-for-t...

https://archive.is/LmEA1 (same site without paywall)

It doesn’t have to be espionage, it can be just operational risk. There is the case of Trump ordering sanctions against the International Criminal Court, and Microsoft blocking their accounts to comply (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14203). Or more recently, Trump deciding who gets access to Anthropic’s latest models. You can’t build a business on a vendor who may be forced to block you at any moment.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB95326824311657269 (https://archive.is/N46di)

Why We Spy on Our Allies

March 17, 2000 11:56 am ET

By R. James Woolsey, a Washington lawyer and a former director of central intelligence.

We'll begin with some candor from the American side. Yes, my continental European friends, we have spied on you. And it's true that we use computers to sort through data by using keywords. Have you stopped to ask yourselves what we're looking for?

tl;dr: "You bribe, so we spy"