Washington warns Brussels: EU spectrum curbs on Starlink risk trade retaliation
From the Space digest for Oct 26, 2026
What happened: TechTimes reports (October 26, ~4:20 AM ET) that a US ambassador, Andrew Puzder, has warned the EU that its satellite-spectrum plans curbing Starlink risk "devastating" transatlantic trade retaliation — turning a regulatory dispute over satellite spectrum into a trade standoff.
What's genuinely new: the spectrum fight over SpaceX's satellite business has gone international. Until now it was a domestic FCC docket — AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile on October 25 asked the FCC to drop 290 MHz of 2.5 GHz and 3.45 GHz spectrum from its satellite coverage from space plan — and the dispute now carries ambassador-level trade-retaliation threats aimed at EU spectrum plans, days before the FCC's October 29 direct-to-device spectrum auction vote.
Watch: the EU's response, the October 29 FCC auction vote, and whether ambassador-level warnings turn into formal trade measures.
Sources TechTimes