Trump threatens EU tariffs after Brussels fines Google $1 billion under the Digital Markets Act. Donald Trump delivers remarks from the Oval Office as tensions escalate between the United States and the European Union following Brussels’ record antitrust penalty against Google. Credit: Official White House Photo by Molly Riley / Wikimedia Commons.
Donald Trump warned on Friday, July 24, 2026 that the United States will impose considerable tariffs and open a formal trade investigation against the European Union, responding directly to Brussels record fine against Google just one day earlier.
Writing on his platform Truth Social, the President accused the bloc of “illegal and highly unethical conduct” and declared the EU “will pay a very big price,” escalating a dispute that started with a regulatory penalty and quickly turned into a full-blown transatlantic trade threat.
Why the EU fined Google US$1 billion
The European Commission hit Google with two separate fines totaling 890 million euros, roughly 1 billion US dollars, marking the largest single penalty ever issued under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, a law designed to stop dominant tech platforms from abusing their market power.
Regulators split that total into two specific violations, fining Google 460 million euros for favoring its own services, like Google Flights and Google Hotels, over competitors in search results, and a separate 430 million euros for blocking app developers on Google Play from directing users toward cheaper offers available outside Google’s own store.
The Commission ordered Google to end both practices within 60 days or face escalating “periodic penalty payments,” and it also signaled that these same fairness obligations could soon extend to Google’s newer AI-powered tools, including AI Overviews and AI Mode, expanding the law’s reach well beyond traditional search.
Donald Trump amenazó con imponer nuevos aranceles a la Unión Europea tras la multa de €890 millones que el bloque aplicó a Google por infringir la Ley de Mercados Digitales. https://t.co/No20lleUOu
— Bloomberg en Español (@BBGenEspanol) July 24, 2026
Trump threatens tariffs against the European Union
Trump’s reaction came fast and pulled no punches, since he announced plans to launch a formal probe “into the practice of robbing American companies,” invoking Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a mechanism that lets Washington respond to what it considers discriminatory foreign trade practices with punitive tariffs.
Jamieson Greer, the White House’s top trade representative, reinforced that message by warning that Brussels move poses “a genuine risk to maintaining transatlantic trade stability,” language that framed the EU’s antitrust enforcement as a direct threat to the broader economic relationship between the two powers rather than a routine regulatory action.
How the Digital Markets Act is reshaping big tech
This fight didn’t emerge out of nowhere, since the Digital Markets Act has already produced enforcement actions against other major American tech companies including Apple and Meta over the past year, and combined with earlier antitrust penalties Brussels levied against Google between 2017 and 2019, the EU’s total fines against the company now exceed 10 billion euros.
That accumulated pressure helps explain why this particular fine, even though it represents just 0,22% of Google’s total turnover according to EU officials, landed as the spark that pushed Trump toward launching a formal trade investigation rather than simply issuing another public complaint. With both sides now digging in just as Washington and Brussels had been quietly working to ease trade tensions, this latest clash risks undoing months of diplomatic efforts, turning what began as a regulatory fine into a much broader confrontation over how far each side is willing to go to defend its companies and enforce its own rules.