This label would be more accurate if it read
“NOT made in the European Union”
When asked by the White House earlier this week to not attend a French space summit being held next week, four American space companies — SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stoke Space, and Starcloud — quickly agreed and pulled out of the conference.
While the press reports have tried to imply that Trump threatened these companies if they attended the conference, the truth is that the administration didn’t have to make any threats at all. What happened was that it likely pointed out that the Europe Union (EU) — with France’s blessings — is considering passing a truly oppressive Space Act that would impose odious regulations on the American space industry, and that the State Department, and both the American and European space industries have objected strongly to that language. To attend the conference would not only imply acceptance of the proposed act, it would encourage the EU to pass it. As noted in August 2026 by the Computer & Communications Industry Association, an American trade organization for the satellite industry:
The EU Space Act could impose billions in incremental compliance costs on U.S. companies, which would lead to increased market prices, reduced U.S. exports, reduced U.S. tax revenues, harm to the U.S. space industry’s global competitiveness, increased global market share in dual-use space assets for China, and by extension harm to U.S. national security interests.
The worst part of the act, as noted by a European think tank that supports the law, is that it “aims to extend the EU’s jurisdiction to space service providers based outside the EU.”
It thus didn’t take much to convince these companies to pull out, especially because it appears the present French government under Emmanuel Macron is likely playing a very influential part in pushing to pass the Space Act. Any action by American companies to encourage those polices in Europe would be very counterproductive to their own interests.
Expect this divide between Europe and the U.S. to widen if the European Union persists and passes this law that tries impose its rule on American sovereignty. Its only accomplishment will be to harm to the EU’s space industry by isolating it from American customers.
