Trump threatens tariffs on the European Union in response to fines on US tech companies

Washington, April 24 (KUNA) -- U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to launch a “theft investigation” and impose tariffs on the European Union following its decision yesterday to levy fines on American technology companies. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, “The EU is back at it again. As usual, it is directly targeting great American companies.” He noted that “after imposing fines—without any justification—of $15 billion on Apple, $3 billion on Meta, $2.5 billion on Amazon, and many others, we have just learned that Google—a truly advanced and remarkable company—has been fined an additional $1 billion without any explanation.” He added, “This brings the total fines imposed on Google to more than $18 billion.” He emphasized that “these illegal practices, characterized by blatant discrimination at such high levels,” began “during the first year” of his predecessor Joe Biden’s administration, and assured that they would not continue under his leadership. He affirmed that the United States “is not a piggy bank for Europe, and we will not allow it to be so.” He announced, “We will immediately launch an investigation under Section 301 regarding the theft of American companies, and consequently the theft of American taxpayers’ money.” He stressed that “the EU will pay a heavy price for this completely illegal and unethical behavior, which I have warned them about repeatedly.” He noted that “these fines will be fully canceled, and we expect to impose significant tariffs on them as soon as possible.” Yesterday, the EU imposed two fines on Google totaling 890 million euros ($1 billion), and fined it an additional 460 million euros ($523.04 million) for allegedly illegally favoring its own services, such as Google Flights for air travel and Google Hotels for accommodations, over competitors in search results. The European Commission stated that the second fine, amounting to 430 million euros ($488.93 million), was imposed because Google did not allow app developers to display free offers to consumers outside its digital marketplace, Google Play. EU Technology Commissioner Henna Virkkunen said, “Following this decision, we want to ensure greater competition and enable other companies to innovate as well.” (End) R.S.R / H.S.S