Claim:
In December 2025, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia announced sanctions against the United States that targeted U.S. President Donald Trump.
Rating:
In December 2025, a rumor spread online that U.S. allies — including the European Union, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom — announced sanctions targeting U.S. President Donald Trump and “his inner circle.”
For the purposes of verification, several Snopes readers sent in screenshots and a transcript from a YouTube video (screenshotted) by account SignalVerse, which began as follows (emphasis ours):
So, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia just announced coordinated sanctions against the United States for the first time in history. You heard that right. America’s closest allies, the nations that have stood with us through two world wars, through the Cold War, through every global crisis for nearly a century, have imposed economic penalties on the country they once considered their indispensable partner. And the target is unmistakably clear: Donald Trump and his inner circle. The sanctions freeze assets, ban travel, and restrict financial transactions for Trump, 17 members of his administration, and over 40 American companies connected to his business empire.
As of this writing, the European Union, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom have not announced sanctions against the United States, as evidenced by each entity’s sanctions lists. No reputable news organizations have reported on any announcements about sanctions from U.S. allies, and they certainly would have if this announcement was real.
Thus, we have rated this claim false.
The SignalVerse YouTube account has published dozens of videos with sensational, false headlines since November 2025, and the person speaking in the video appeared to be generated by artificial intelligence (AI). It was not possible to reach the creator in question for comment.
No sanctions against US from allies
Each entity listed above publishes a public “Consolidated List” of every sanction it imposes. The European Union’s can be found here, Australia’s can be found here, Canada’s can be found here and the United Kingdom’s can be found here (archived, downloaded spreadsheet, archived and archived).
As of this writing, based on a comprehensive review by Snopes of each list, neither the European Union nor any of the aforementioned countries have imposed any sanctions on the United States, Trump or any members of his administration.
Google searches for “U.S. allies sanction United States,” “European Union sanctions United States,” “Australia sanctions United States,” “Canada sanctions United States” and “United Kingdom sanctions United States” also returned no relevant results from reputable news outlets.
AI-generated content creation
There’s a few red flags in the SignalVerse video that indicate someone likely generated it using artificial intelligence. The person in the video’s voice is monotone and robotic, with few to no natural inflections common in a human’s voice.
Looking closely, the person’s mouth appears to be moving on top of their face, instead of naturally with the muscles of a real person’s face. Furthermore, the person’s eyes are blinking at an irregular rate — see 1:57, for example — a common sign of AI-generated fake videos.
Finally, a reverse-image Google search of the SignalVerse person’s face returned only one result: a video of a person’s testimony on a website advertising an accounting firm. That person looked eerily similar to the SignalVerse person — down to the mole on their neck — but spoke with a completely different (and much more natural) inflection. (The accounting firm did not immediately return a request to connect with the client in the video.)
See that video here:
Compare the above person’s voice and inflection to the YouTube video:
