It is an attempt to not lose European customers that might be tempted to migrate to Europe-based solutions in the current political climate. In the event of a serious trade war (like you suggested) and/or a real war, it gives some assurances; which is smart based on the threats from the current unpredictable and authoritarian U.S. administration.

But it probably started as a way to comply with EU laws more easily, so it works on multiple levels.

It has already been discussed here a bit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46640462

EU, as a US citizen, go all in and ditch the US as much as you can. Not only will this bring competition, it also means that the US Government cannot grab the balls of Amazon and squeeze the EU market.

I wouldn't trust Amazon with my data if I was an EU citizen. As a US citizen I don't even trust Amazon with my own data. This is why I support de-Google, de-Microsoft, and de-Apple computing.

They can provide any data available to Amazon employees in the US. They can't provide what they do not have.

it's whitewashing. The US Cloud Act means they can still take the data.

From what I’m understanding, it won’t be dependent anymore on us-east-1, but this isn’t mentioned explicitly. This is great, especially if you consider that some cut cable in the ocean could literally turn off a big part of the companies in a whole continent.

AWS has the notion of "partitions", which is a technical boundary encompassing multiple regions. This mostly doesn't come up, but it does poke through in certain implementation details, like how AMI manifests for groups of regions (partitions) need to be encrypted for different public keys. Each partition has a specific region which must be targeted for certain partition-wide actions, such as managing IAM endpoints in other regions.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/aws-fault-iso...

Normal AWS (`aws`) traces to `us-east-1`. AWS GovCloud (US) (`aws-us-gov`) is distinct, based in `us-gov-west-1`. AWS in China (`aws-cn`) is distinct again, based in `cn-north-1`.

The AWS European Sovereign Cloud is implemented as a distinct partition – `aws-eusc` based in `eusc-de-east-1` – so it has exactly as much in common with normal AWS as AWS GovCloud (US) or AWS in China.

The docs explicitly describe this cloud's independence from the US.

> The AWS European Sovereign Cloud will be capable of operation without dependency on global AWS systems so that the AWS European Sovereign Cloud will remain viable for operating workloads indefinitely even in the face of exceptional circumstances that could isolate the AWS European Sovereign Cloud from AWS resources located outside the EU, such as catastrophic disruption of transatlantic communications infrastructure or a military or geopolitical crisis threatening the sovereignty of EU member states.

It's similar to FedRAMP systems like AWS GovCloud (US), which can only be accessed by someone who is a US person (US citizen or lawful permanent resident) and on US soil (physically in the US at the time of access).

It's a regulatory requirement:

> Replicating a broadly practiced mitigation mechanism that is established in EU institution and government hiring practices, operational control and access will be restricted to EU citizens located in the EU to ensure that all operators have enduring ties to the EU and to meet the needs of our customers and partners.

- https://www.aboutamazon.eu/news/aws/aws-european-sovereign-c...