The Mandarin (Australia)

The Data Sovereignty Fault Line Dividing Washington and Its Allies

The United States, via Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is urging diplomats to counter foreign data‑sovereignty measures, calling EU regulations overly burdensome and a threat to innovation. At the same time, France announced it will replace Microsoft Teams and Zoom with a domestically‑controlled platform, Visio, citing security and digital autonomy concerns. These moves highlight a growing rift between the US‑centric data‑flow model and European efforts to localize data. The divergence threatens to reshape cross‑border data practices for multinational firms.