The European Union may retaliate with contemporary taxes on American tech giants like Google and Meta if commerce negotiations fail with President Trump, a prime EU official mentioned.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the highly effective European Fee, issued the warning after Trump on Wednesday authorised a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs in opposition to the EU — and different international locations besides China — to barter commerce offers.
“We are developing retaliatory measures,” von der Leyen mentioned in an interview with the Monetary Occasions printed Thursday. “There’s a wide range of countermeasures … in case the negotiations are not satisfactory.”
One possibility is to “put a levy on the advertising revenues of digital services,” she added.
Google and Meta every derive the majority of their earnings from digital advertisements.
Von der Leyen mentioned Huge Tech corporations may very well be focused utilizing the EU’s Anti-Coercion Instrument, which is loosely based mostly on the 1974 US Commerce Act and has by no means been used. Doing so would require a vote by the 27-member bloc that might grant the European Fee wide-ranging powers to restrict US commerce on the continent.
Trump has imposed a ten% levy on all EU exports to the US. There’s additionally a 25% tariff on imported vehicles and automobile components, in addition to on metal and aluminum.
The EC chief described the present state of play as a “complete inflection point in global trade.”
“It’s a turning point with the United States without any question,” she informed the FT. “We will never go back any more to the status quo.”
As The Put up completely reported earlier this week, the EU is already anticipated to press forward with main fines in opposition to Google and Apple for violations of its Digital Markets Act — a sweeping digital competitors legislation that slaps restrictions on web gatekeepers.
Senior EU officers mentioned they view the fines and ongoing talks on commerce tariffs as “two completely separate processes” and wouldn’t reduce any particular offers with the US on tech.
The fines may very well be introduced as quickly as this week or subsequent week.
The fantastic in opposition to Meta may stretch past $1 billion, sources mentioned. The scale of a possible fantastic in opposition to Apple couldn’t instantly be realized.
Six of the seven corporations coated by the DMA are American.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Trump himself have publicly criticized the EU’s legislation — with the president referring to it as “overseas extortion.”
Trump has warned that any extra efforts by the EU to focus on the US tech business would lead to extreme retaliation.
The Brussels-based European Fee has sole authority for EU commerce and antitrust coverage and has the ability to fantastic tech firms as much as 10% of their world turnover for noncompliance with the DMA.
Nonetheless, preliminary penalties underneath the legislation, which took impact in 2023, are usually not anticipated to succeed in that top.
