President Donald Trump isn’t happy with how European Union regulators have treated U.S.-based tech companies, including Google, Meta, and Apple.
Onstage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump put EU regulators on blast. He said that the EU’s cases against these U.S. tech companies are “a form of taxation,” according to Bloomberg reporting.
Trump specifically pointed out a court case that Apple lost last year regarding a €13 billion tax bill in Ireland. In 2024, the EU’s Court of Justice in Luxembourg found that Apple had benefited from illegal tax breaks in Ireland between 1999 and 2014 and was forced to pay back taxes.
Bloomberg predicted that this is just the start of a fiery back-and-forth between the Trump administration and the EU that could span the entirety of his second term.
Google, Meta, and Apple are all currently being investigated for potential violations of the EU’s Digital Markets Act.
