Donald Trump says the US will launch an investigation into the European Union and threatened a contemporary tariff over fines handed to a few of the greatest American tech firms.
It comes days after the European Fee fined Google €890m ($1bn) for working in a approach that squeezed out opponents to its providers.
In a publish to Fact Social, which Trump owns, the US president stated the EU would pay a “very large worth” over the way it had handled Google, together with different main US tech firms Apple, Meta, and Amazon, which have additionally been investigated.
“America of America shouldn’t be a “PIGGYBANK” for Europe, nor will we enable it to be!” he wrote.
Trump stated any fines ought to be “totally reversed” and that he was initiating a commerce investigation of the EU whereas contemplating “a considerable TARIFF”.
He added that the US would “instantly provoke a 301 investigation” over European regulators’ alleged apply of “robbing American firms and, in flip, the American taxpayer”.
Part 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, external offers The Workplace of the US Commerce Consultant the ability to react and examine commerce practices believed to be unfair. The second Trump Administration has launched several such investigations, external since final yr.
The tariff risk comes simply someday after Trump introduced new tariffs on 60 trading partners, together with the EU, UK and China, of between 10% and 12.5%.
Trump additionally final month threatened a 100% import tariff on any European nation that introduces a digital providers tax on American know-how giants, regardless of many such nations already doing so, external for years.
Main tech firms, together with Google, Meta, Apple, and Amazon, have donated hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to funds behind Trump’s campaign and presidency.
José Castañeda, a spokesman for Google, informed the BBC the corporate had “labored exhausting to conform” with Europe’s Digital Markets Act however had “expressed our issues in regards to the influence of current EC selections”.
“We admire the engagement by the administration and US authorities,” Castañeda added.
Along with the current high-quality towards Google, Trump claimed in his publish that Apple had acquired EU fines of $15bn, Meta fines of $3bn, and Amazon fines of $2.5bn.
Representatives of Meta, Apple and Amazon, in addition to the European Fee, have been contacted for remark.
It was not clear the place the figures cited by Trump come from.
Shortly earlier than Trump was elected president in 2024, he stated Tim Cook dinner, Apple’s chief government, had called him directly to complain about fines the corporate had acquired from European regulators.
The decision got here not lengthy after Apple misplaced a long-running dispute over unpaid taxes.
Meta, which owns Fb, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been fined a number of instances by EU regulators, together with for violations of consumer privateness and competition laws, external. Additionally it is dealing with new fines over purportedly “addictive” options of its apps.
Meta last year said the EU was “trying to handicap profitable American companies”.
Amazon, nonetheless, seems to have been investigated at instances by the European Fee, however prevented main fines. The corporate in 2022 reached an settlement with regulators to vary a few of its practices in Europe.
A separate regulatory physique in Luxembourg did impose on Amazon a high-quality of greater than $800mn for violations of Common Information Safety Regulation guidelines, however that was overturned last year, external.
