Europe passed a law a couple of years ago that says something simple.

If you are one of the biggest companies in the world, you have to look at who makes your products. If the answer involves forced labor or child labor, you have to do something about it. And you have to tell people what you found.

That's the law. Eight Republicans we track just filed a bill to fight it.

What the Bill Does

Craig Goldman filed it on July 23. He calls it the Stop EU Overreach Act.

It orders the U.S. government to open a formal trade investigation against Europe — the first step toward tariffs. The last time the government ran one of these, against China, it ended with taxes on about 75% of everything China sells us, more than $370 billion worth of goods.

So this is not a letter of complaint. It is the opening move of a trade fight.

Over What, Exactly

The bill goes after four European rules. Stripped of the official names, here is what they ask companies to do:

• Check your supply chain for forced labor and child labor, and fix what you find.
• Tell the public how much pollution you produce.
• Don't sell products made by cutting down forests.
• Pay a charge on imports based on the carbon that went into making them.

The first one is the big one, and it is worth being precise about what it covers. The list of abuses companies have to look for is built on the international agreements against forced labor, against putting children to work below a minimum age, and against the worst forms of child labor. The rule spells out that the search for forced labor includes forced child labor.

That is the thing eight members of Congress want investigated as an unfair trade practice.

"American Businesses" Means Something Very Specific Here

Goldman's reason:

"This important legislation will protect American businesses from the EU's woke regulations and extreme green energy mandates."

Greg Steube's:

"American businesses should answer to American law, not to regulators in Brussels."

Here is what neither of them mentions.

That European law does not apply to small or medium businesses. Europe wrote them out of it on purpose. To be covered, a company has to have:

• at least 5,000 employees, and
• billions in yearly sales

A foreign company like an American one only gets covered if it sells more than a billion and a half euros' worth of product inside Europe.

Five thousand employees. Billions in sales. That is not the machine shop in Fort Worth or the citrus packer in Florida. Those businesses are already exempt. This rule reaches a small club of the largest corporations on earth.

So when the press release says this protects "American businesses," it means a handful of enormous ones. Nobody's family company is being asked to do anything here.

Where the $1 Trillion Number Comes From

The press release says these European rules could cost American businesses more than $1 trillion to comply with.

That figure is credited to the Hudson Institute — a conservative think tank, not a neutral scorekeeper like the Congressional Budget Office. It is an advocacy group's estimate being used to sell an advocacy bill.

It's also worth holding that trillion-dollar number next to the fact above: the rule only reaches companies with 5,000 employees and billions in sales.

The Eight Who Signed On

Goldman wrote the bill. Nine members cosponsored it. Eight of the ten are Republicans we track:

• Craig Goldman (TX-12)
• Greg Steube (FL-17)
• Gus Bilirakis (FL-12)
• Randy Weber (TX-14)
• August Pfluger (TX-11)
• Warren Davidson (OH-8)
• Pete Sessions (TX-17)
• Roger Williams (TX-25)

For Warren Davidson, voting against protections for children in other countries is not new. He was the only Ohioan who wouldn't vote to condemn Russia for stealing Ukrainian children — a resolution that passed 390 to 9.

You Would Pay for the Fight

There's a second cost here, and it lands on you.

A trade investigation is how tariff fights start, and tariffs are a tax Americans pay at the register. The Tax Foundation puts the cost of Trump's tariffs so far at about $1,000 a year for the average household. We've written before about how Trump keeps raising prices this way while Republicans in Congress block every vote to stop him.

Europe is one of our biggest trading partners. Picking a fight with it is not free, and the people who pay are not the eight men who filed the bill.

Say It Plainly

Nobody here is in favor of child labor. That's not the claim, and it would be dishonest to make it.

The claim is narrower and easier to prove. Eight Republicans decided that asking the world's largest companies to go look for forced labor — and write down what they find — is "woke," is Brussels bossing us around, and is worth risking a trade war over.

Someone weighed the paperwork against what the paperwork is for, and the paperwork lost.

Sources

• H.R. 9892, the Stop EU Overreach Act, filed July 23, 2026, and its official cosponsor list
• Reps. Goldman, Arrington, Steube Introduce Bill to Counter the EU's Corporate Sustainability Directives — Texas GOP Vote, August 17, 2026
• Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence — European Commission
• The EU corporate sustainability due diligence directive — UNICEF Child Rights and Business