Whilst the European Union talks of matters such as “strategic autonomy” and idealizes itself as a unified, independent force for good in the world, the reality could not be further from the truth. Espionage revelations are just the tip of the iceberg of a variety of ways in which the United States has, through its integration with Europe’s military and security dynamic, utilized a myriad of political tactics to strongarm the bloc into following its political will and agenda, even when it is apathetic or openly objects to it.
Its a good question, because occasionally the US does clamp down on its vassal states ( this numeves video on How the US dominates tech shows a few cases of the US doing this against France and Japan with certain industries ) . You could call it conflict, but considering they aren’t anywhere close to peer competitors ( especially militarily ), and since the capitalists of these countries mostly have the same goals of imperialist wealth extraction from low wage global south workers, its not much of a conflict. Maybe like the head of a crime family keeping an eye on what all the little bosses are doing.