American leaders and politicians wish to target US technology companies with regulation; the European Union is doing their job for them. The Chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulatory agency is Lina Khan. Appointed by President Joe Biden in 2021, she is the de facto leader of the "antitrust" movement, aiming its sights on Big Tech.

The American term for laws advancing competition and dissolving monopolies is antitrust. Sadly, Khan and many of her fellow visitors seem eager to weaponize antitrust to further their own political agendas, therefore upsetting the expansion, creativity, and diversification of the American technological industry. In her battle, Khan is seeking friends. She won the lottery in Brussels.

Though for different reasons, the European Union also intends to crack down on American tech giants. Through its Digital Markets Act (DMA), the EU wants to impose stringent limits on the operations of US digital behemoths in Europe, with the aim of fostering development and innovation in Europe and a fresh generation of European tech entrepreneurs.

That’s the theory. The reality is quite different. Besides anything else, it opens the door to Chinese big business rather than European entrepreneurs. Although this is sometimes overlooked by authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, the DMA also opens the path for Chinese companies like TikTok owner ByteDance to acquire a greater foothold on the continent.

For Khan and the FTC, the DMA is very welcome. It gives her aggressive approach towards Silicon Valley international validity. Khan is so passionate about the DMA succeeding that she even dispatched a fleet of employees to Brussels to assist in its implementation.

At the very least, the clear satisfaction of US officials at a supposedly pro-European intervention in the technology industry should raise questions in Brussels regarding whether the DMA will succeed in boosting innovation in Europe.

Khan is out of control. Her own staff refers to her as a "tyrant." But Lina Khan and the FTC are America’s problem, not Europe's. The DMA's direct attack on US businesses is its flaw, which is also why Khan enjoys it so greatly.

Hurting American companies is not the same as supporting European ones. Along with another new law, the Digital Services Act, the DMA is probably going to cost US tech businesses up to $50 billion, just from its new, enormous weight of extra regulatory compliance, not to mention its effect on appetites to invest in Europe. But constraining Silicon Valley in this way won't help inspire European innovation.

The world in which we live is global. No matter where in the world they were developed, we all gain from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists supporting fresh ideas meant to improve our lives. From the iPhone to artificial intelligence, attacking the American businesses that have done more than most in this industry in recent years would help Europe slow down rather than hasten.

This is the incorrect approach if the EU is seeking to fan the European tech industry. Entrepreneurs and pioneers of new technology require a helpful environment of low taxes and reasonable, consistent rules if they are to flourish. Along with a readiness to actively attack creative businesses at will and a litany of basic misunderstandings about how the industry operates, the EU is embodying the opposite: wildly erratic regulatory lurches for relevance and virtue-signaling.

By building obstacles for multinational businesses seeking to operate in, invest in, and grow into Europe, the DMA will harm European consumers, but, as Lina Khan's involvement reveals, its impact goes beyond that. American companies are facing penalties for their explosive success. All their customers, in America, Europe, and across the rest of the globe, suffer when they are under attack. Costs will be passed on to consumers, and innovation will be suppressed.

Brussels should turn away from its austere protectionism and reject the FTC's ambitions. Rather, it should aim more seriously to let the European technology industry grow naturally by reducing its regulatory outbursts and so conveying a message that Europe is open for business. In that quest, Lina Khan is not at all a helpful friend.