On Trump's part this is probably just part of a public trade negotiation, so it's true; Europe should be hosting its own data and its own data processing. They

On Trump's part this is probably just part of a public trade negotiation, so it's true; Europe should be hosting its own data and its own data processing. They just won't because it means a lot of short term pain for extremely dubious long term gain. The PCLOB is obviously theater that gives Europe an excuse to pretend that it has an independent data policy focused on protecting Europeans, because: 1) The US will go through European data if it wants, and happily and quietly break its own laws to do it, board or no board. 2) Europeans want even heavier surveillance of European data than the US does. 3) I'm sure Europe is happy to use the US to get around its own privacy laws. The reason Trump is breaking the board is because that will by law create a necessity for Europeans to move data out of the US, which again would be a nightmare of dubious benefit. In return for not breaking the board, Trump will ask for unrelated concessions that are a lot less expensive than that. Europe will have choices to make. Privacywise, the US will have access to European data no matter where it is stored, no matter what it needs to do to get that access. It has nothing to lose on that front, only the income (which is imagine is not huge.) But without that board, Europeans have to choose between either onshoring or leaving the data in the US even with no working deal in place (and ending the elaborate pr charade that they care about the privacy of Europeans.) That board is a gift to Europe.