A bipartisan group of lawmakers has written to Biden, claiming that European technology regulations unfairly target US companies and not Chinese or EU firms.

Under the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), five major U.S. tech companies -- Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft -- were designated "gatekeeper" service providers. From March 2024, these companies and TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance will be required to make their messaging apps work with rivals and let users choose which ones they want pre-installed on their devices.

More than 21 US House of Representatives members warned the new rules could damage American economic and security interests and called on Biden to secure commitments from the EU that the rules will be enforced fairly.

"Securing our leadership in this sector is imperative for our economy and American workers. The designation of leading U.S. companies as 'gatekeepers' threatens to upend the U.S. economy, diminish our global leadership in the digital sphere, and jeopardise consumers' security."

The letter questioned why Chinese companies Alibaba, Huawei, and Tencent avoided designation and European companies avoided scrutiny. This might be because US companies have a near monopoly control in the EU mostly because no one has been allowed to stand up to them. 

"The EU inexplicably failed to designate any European retailers, content-sharing platforms, payment firms, and telcos," it said.

Signatories of the letter called on Biden to seek assurances from EU lawmakers the DMA will not be unfairly used to target US companies.