The president blasts Europe’s “discriminatory” penalties on U.S. giants Google and Apple while American courts hand Google a major defeat in a privacy case.
U.S. President Donald Trump has issued a fiery warning to the European Union, threatening retaliatory trade action over what he calls “unfair and discriminatory” financial penalties against American technology companies. His remarks come as Google faces fresh legal troubles at home, with a U.S. federal jury ordering the company to pay $425 million for breaching users’ privacy rights.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump accused European regulators of “draining resources from the U.S. economy” through heavy antitrust fines and tax rulings against American tech firms. He suggested the EU’s actions were stifling innovation and undermining U.S. jobs, warning that unless Europe backed down, he would be “forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties.”
“We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity,” Trump declared, adding that the EU was “effectively taking money that would otherwise go to American Investments and Jobs.”
Trump’s comments came just days after the European Union slapped Google with a nearly $3.5 billion fine over alleged anticompetitive practices in its digital advertising operations. The penalty adds to a string of costly regulatory battles U.S. tech firms have faced in Europe in recent years.
The president also defended Apple, highlighting what he described as “very unfair” cumulative fines and tax penalties of roughly $17 billion. That figure appears to reference a 2024 court ruling in which Apple was ordered to pay more than $14 billion in back taxes linked to its European operations. “Apple should get their money back!” Trump insisted.
“On top of the many other fines and taxes that have been issued against Google and other American Tech Companies, this is unacceptable. Very unfair, and the American Taxpayer will not stand for it!” Trump wrote.
Adding to Google’s mounting woes, a U.S. federal jury this week ordered the tech giant to pay $425 million in damages after finding it had improperly collected user data despite privacy settings meant to prevent such tracking.
The class-action lawsuit, filed in July 2020, covered an estimated 98 million Google users and 174 million devices. Plaintiffs alleged that Google’s Web & App Activity settings misled users into believing their movements and digital interactions were not being tracked when, in fact, data was still harvested.
According to the complaint, Google’s collection practices extended to hundreds of thousands of smartphone applications, including those operated by Uber, Lyft, Alibaba, Amazon, Instagram, and Facebook. Users sought more than $31 billion in damages, although the jury ultimately ruled for a far smaller award.
The panel found Google liable for two out of three privacy claims but determined the company had not acted with malice.
In response, Google argued that when users switch off Web & App Activity in their accounts, data collected through Google Analytics by third-party businesses is anonymized and cannot be used to identify individuals. “This information respects users’ privacy choices,” the company maintained.
Nevertheless, the ruling marks one of the most significant privacy-related judgments against the company to date, highlighting growing global pressure on Big Tech to rein in its data practices.
Trump’s threats of trade retaliation add a geopolitical dimension to the tech industry’s mounting legal woes. The possibility of a Section 301 investigation, a tool traditionally used to confront unfair trade practices, suggests Washington could escalate tensions with Brussels over the treatment of U.S. digital champions.
With Google facing billions in fines in Europe and now a costly privacy defeat at home, and Apple still locked in a years-long tax battle with EU regulators, the latest developments underscore how Big Tech remains caught between aggressive scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic.
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