‘The CSDDD is the greatest threat to America’s sovereignty since the fall of the Soviet Union.’
‘If allowed to proceed unchecked, the CSDDD will eviscerate U.S. sovereignty, economic prosperity, free markets, and individual liberty.’
‘The EU’s CSDDD is exactly the type of aggressive and globalist progressive meddling that provokes President Trump to consider tariffs.’
‘The EU’s CSDDD isn’t just a law—it’s a global shackle, chaining businesses and freedoms to Brussels’ radical agenda.’
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (March 31, 2025) – The radical environmental, social, and governance (ESG) movement has recently experienced substantial setbacks in the United States. However, ESG is far from dead. In fact, it will soon be imposed on America by the European Union.
The European Union’s recently enacted Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) is designed to impose sweeping ESG obligations on large companies worldwide—including hundreds of America’s most prominent corporations—regardless of whether they are based in the European Union.
Worse, large companies covered by the CSDDD will be forced to ensure that nearly all their business partners adhere to the same stringent obligations, irrespective of how much revenue they generate or where they conduct business. Because of this focus on companies’ supply and value chains, it is possible that nearly every business in the world will ultimately be forced to comply with the European Union’s draconian policy initiatives, transforming global economic and social activity.
A new Heartland Institute Policy Study titled “CSDDD: The European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive Is a Direct Threat to U.S. Sovereignty, Free Markets, and Individual Liberty” thoroughly examines the CSDDD and its ramifications upon American society.
As Heartland authors Jack McPherrin and Justin Haskins conclude, “If the CSDDD goes unanswered, the United States will effectively become a vassal state of the European Union and be fundamentally transformed through corporate coercion. The way Americans work, the products and services they can buy, the kinds of cars they can drive, the source of their electricity, their food and agricultural practices, the living standards they enjoy, and countless other aspects of their lives will be altered for the worse by the CSDDD.”
It is imperative that the American people and their elected representatives wake up to this threat and push back against the CSDDD as strongly as possible. All actions to oppose the CSDDD should be on the table and aggressively pursued.
The following statements from experts at The Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at [email protected] and 312/377-4000 or (cell) 312/731-9364.
“The CSDDD is the greatest threat to America’s sovereignty since the fall of the Soviet Union. The law’s drafters designed the legislation to coerce countries like the United States and United Kingdom to adhere to whatever rules EU bureaucrats dream up. It doesn’t matter how costly they are or whether U.S. voters want them.
“Americans should be outraged by the European Union’s actions, and U.S. policymakers should take immediate action to stop the CSDDD in its tracks. A trade war between the EU and America would be extremely unfortunate, but if that’s what is necessary to show EU policymakers that the United States won’t give up its sovereignty, then so be it.”
Justin Haskins
Senior Fellow, Glenn C. Haskins Emerging Issues Center
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
“The EU’s CSDDD is exactly the type of aggressive and globalist progressive meddling that provokes President Trump to consider tariffs. If the European Union foolishly wishes to impose woke ESG mandates on its own businesses, so be it. But the CSDDD goes far beyond that and intentionally imposes the EU’s woke leftist agenda on businesses based in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.
“The CSDDD is bad for Europe, bad for the UK, bad for America, and bad for European-American relations. Such a unilateral provocation, which preceded President Trump returning to the White House, begs for and requires a negative American and international response.”
James Taylor
President
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
“It is not hyperbolic to say the European Union’s new global ESG law is one of the most economically restrictive and nakedly authoritarian laws in the history of western democratic civilization. If allowed to proceed unchecked, the CSDDD will eviscerate U.S. sovereignty, economic prosperity, free markets, and individual liberty, replacing those bedrock ideals with a new system of global corporatism designed and enforced by elites in Brussels.
“U.S. policymakers must take decisive action against the CSDDD while there is still a short window of time to do so. All diplomatic actions taken to protect our most fundamental principles and our way of life should be considered and aggressively pursued. This is not a drill.”
Jack McPherrin
Research Fellow, Glenn C. Haskins Emerging Issues Center
Research Editor
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
“The EU’s CSDDD isn’t just a law—it’s a global shackle, chaining businesses and freedoms to Brussels’ radical agenda. If we don’t fight back, America, the UK, and the global economy will pay the price for decades.
“This is corporate coercion dressed up as sustainability. The CSDDD threatens to turn the United Kingdom and the United States into EU vassals and strangle free markets worldwide, and time is running out to stop it.”
Lois Perry
Director
Heartland UK/Europe
[email protected]
The Heartland Institute is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1984 and headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our website or call 312/377-4000.
