Germany’s Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer is doubling down in his war with U.S. tech giants. Undeterred by allegations that his own Weimer Media Group may have committed mass-scale copyright violations, the minister is pushing ahead with a punitive “digital tax.”

These days, psychology could be taught just by observing German politics. Weimer offers a textbook case of cognitive dissonance. On one hand, he runs The European, a magazine whose business model allegedly relied on publishing unauthorized texts for years. On the other, the same man is now fanning the flames of a transatlantic trade dispute -- without even a hint of awareness about the disastrous consequences of his own rhetoric.

Last week, during a speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Weimer denounced U.S. media companies like X, Google, and Meta as agents of “digital colonialism” and “intellectual vampirism.” With artificial intelligence, he claimed, these platforms “suck out the creativity” of their users -- without fair compensation or respect for authorship.

The irony could not be richer: the same accusations are now being thrown at Weimer himself by numerous authors who claim he’s been exploiting their work at scale since 2012.

Unworthy and Undiplomatic

Weimer’s outburst -- unworthy of a government minister -- and his grotesquely misplaced tone drew a sharp rebuke from U.S. Special Envoy Richard Grenell on X. Grenell’s sardonic comment -- one Weimer might even enjoy -- showed that Washington knows exactly who it’s dealing with.

Weimer’s language mirrors the familiar Brussels tone: maximum demands with zero negotiation strategy. And while the EU routinely scolds Donald Trump for “rough trade tactics,” it employs the very same -- only without results. A grotesque spectacle.

Behind Weimer’s tirade lies the EU Commission’s broader defense line, one President Trump himself has repeatedly warned about. The battle over who controls media content and reach has become the epicenter of the U.S.-EU trade conflict.

At this front, Brussels is desperately trying to reclaim its fading control over narrative power -- the power it has been steadily losing on climate policy, economics, and Ukraine.

Washington, however, has made its position clear: it won’t accept such control measures. In August, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was tasked with warning European diplomats and monitoring any sign of retaliatory actions against American firms.

Weimer Doubles Down

But last week’s clash was only the beginning. In an interview with ntv on Monday, Weimer took things further. He announced plans for a new punitive tax on U.S. digital corporations -- a model he said could generate billions for the German treasury. His example: Austria, where companies with global revenues above €750 million and domestic online ad revenues exceeding €25 million already face a special levy. The Austrian state collected €124 million from it last year, Weimer proudly noted.

Richard Grenell called the idea “a massive assault on the entire U.S. digital industry” -- an attempt to shut it down in Europe. Weimer, in turn, described the U.S. platforms’ business model as a “historic raid,” claiming they’ve “earned tens of billions by exploiting the work of others for free.”

The minister clearly doesn’t understand the business model. He fails to grasp the ripple effects of such a political decision. That countless independent creators -- from TikTok to X to Telegram -- rely on these very platforms for their income is something a bureaucrat like him simply cannot comprehend.

Healing Through Taxation

As is now tradition in the EU’s spirit of central planning, the proposed “cure” is a new tax. How such a levy -- conveniently flowing straight into state coffers -- is supposed to strengthen the copyright of free authors remains entirely unexplained.

We’ve seen this game before in the climate debate. By declaring CO2 the villainous molecule of modern life, politicians invented the perfect mechanism to extract wealth from every economic process -- production, consumption, and mobility alike.

Under the moral banner of “ethical responsibility,” the tax authorities have positioned themselves at the top of the food chain, siphoning off private value creation -- all under the pretense of saving the world.

Of course, this latest tax push -- in which North Rhine-Westphalia’s media minister Nathanael Liminski is also involved -- is nothing more than another desperate attempt by an insolvent state to find fresh revenue streams.

Overregulated and Left Behind

In the ntv interview, Weimer said a draft proposal will be introduced to parliament in November, with a legislative process beginning early next year. The measure, he insisted, targets only “Big Tech,” the companies he claims exhibit “monopolistic structures.”

But when asked why Europe produces no comparable tech giants of its own, Weimer and his colleagues are speechless. The idea that suffocating EU regulation might be the reason why startups prefer to incorporate, raise capital, and scale in the United States never crosses their minds.

And the illusion that government subsidies could somehow spawn “European competitors” to X, Google, or Telegram -- despite massive network effects -- seems not to have reached ministerial consciousness.

In Brussels and Berlin alike, economic understanding has been reduced to one principle: finding ever more “creative” ways to tax private productivity.

That works -- until there’s nothing left to take.

Image: Raimond Spekking