WASHINGTON \u2014 The United States will open a formal investigation into the European Union\u2019s trade practices, President Donald Trump said on Friday, claiming the bloc has unfairly levied billions of dollars of fines against Google, Apple and other U.S. tech giants.<\/p>\n
The Republican president made the announcement a day after the EU hit Google with a fine of 890 million euros, or $1 billion, after it said the technology behemoth broke digital antitrust regulations by setting up Google Play and its ubiquitous search engine to corral consumers toward its own services and apps to the detriment of competitors.<\/p>\n
In a lengthy post on social media, Trump said he has warned the EU about its practice of fining U.S. tech companies. He named Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon and others.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States of America is not a \u2018PIGGYBANK\u2019 for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!\u201d Trump said, adding that his post should serve as notice of an immediate trade investigation \u201cinto the practice of \u2018ROBBING\u2019 American Companies and, in turn, the American Taxpayer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe European Union will pay a very big price for this illegal and highly unethical conduct, which I have consistently warned them about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In the post, Trump asserted that the penalties against the companies \u201cwill be entirely reversed\u201d and predicted \u201ca substantial TARIFF\u201d would be placed on the EU \u201cat the earliest possible moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStay tuned!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Investigation follows new Trump tariffs<\/p>\n
Trump’s move comes a day after the White House announced double-digit tariffs on imports from more than 60 countries, accusing them of inadequately enforcing bans on goods produced by forced labor. The new tariffs replace temporary 10% worldwide import taxes that Trump imposed after the Supreme Court struck down his biggest tariffs.<\/p>\n
The new tariffs are being implemented using Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits the president to impose import taxes and other sanctions against countries found to engage in \u201cunjustifiable,\u201d \u201cunreasonable\u201d or \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d trade practices.<\/p>\n
Jos\u00e9 Casta\u00f1eda, a spokesperson for Google, said the company has worked hard to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act and has expressed its concerns about the effects of recent decisions by the European Commission.<\/p>\n
“We appreciate the engagement by the administration and U.S. government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Representatives of Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment. There also was no immediate comment from the Brussels-based European Commission.<\/p>\n
Trump had threatened retaliation over EU fines<\/p>\n
The EU’s billion-dollar fine against Google was the latest major crackdown on Big Tech by Brussels, which has led the world in reining in some of the world\u2019s largest companies from Silicon Valley to Beijing.<\/p>\n
It has done so despite the risk of incurring the wrath of Trump, who has lashed out at the 27-nation bloc\u2019s digital regulations in a broader campaign against Europe: imposing high tariffs, making threats to seize Greenland from Denmark by force, and rattling trust within the NATO military alliance.<\/p>\n
Trump had threatened retaliation if American tech companies are penalized.<\/p>\n
Google had recently lost its appeal of a $4.5 billion antitrust fine imposed by the EU for throttling competition and reducing consumer choice through the dominance of its mobile Android operating system.<\/p>\n
The European Commission, the bloc\u2019s executive branch and highest antitrust enforcer, said it was acting in the interest of consumers after an investigation of Google.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best products should succeed because they\u2019re better, not because they\u2019re owned by the company running the search engine. And European consumers have a right to be told by app developers where to sign up to the best offers, even when the app store owner does not get a cut,\u201d said Teresa Ribera, the commission\u2019s executive vice president for clean, just and competitive transition.<\/p>\n
Google\u2019s president of global affairs, Kent Walker, assailed the fine as \u201cproduct degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants\u201d that will hurt European businesses and consumers.<\/p>\n
He said the EU\u2019s Digital Markets Act forces Google \u201cto strip away real-time search features Europeans love \u2014 like instant pricing and direct availability for hotels, flights, and restaurants \u2014 and dismantle safety protections on Google Play.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EU describes some of the world\u2019s leading tech giants \u2014 Amazon, Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok owner ByteDance \u2014 as \u201cgatekeepers\u201d that control access for consumers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the EU, businesses have the right to compete fairly. Gatekeepers have the obligation to ensure a level playing field and consumers the right to choose for cheaper alternative offers,\u201d European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said. Alphabet reported $403 billion in revenue last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The United States will open a formal investigation into the European Union\u2019s trade practices, President Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3604,3918,4729,66,39,256,40,19158,45],"class_list":["post-102435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-apple-inc","tag-big-tech","tag-consumer","tag-donald-trump","tag-eu","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union","tag-tariff","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}