The United States on Tuesday lashed out against the European Union for discriminating against, harassing, and treating American companies unfairly, especially the Big Tech firms like Google (GOOG) (GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), and Meta Platforms (META), which have been hit with exorbitant fines this year.
In a post on X, the U.S. Trade Representative, the government body dealing with trade and economic policies, highlighted that the bloc benefits from the U.S. in the form of jobs created in their economy, through more than $100B in direct investment in the region, and the freedom European companies enjoy to operate in America.
The USTR pointed to popular European names like Accenture (ACN), Amadeus (AMADF), Capgemini (CAPMF), DHL (DHLGY), Mistral, Publicis (PUBGY), SAP (SAP), Siemens (SIEGY), and Spotify (SPOT), who reap these benefits.
But in return, American firms are subjected to restrictions and are slapped with fines, taxes, and lawsuits, the U.S. agency said.
“If the EU and EU Member States insist on continuing to restrict, limit, and deter the competitiveness of U.S. service providers through discriminatory means, the United States will have no choice but to begin using every tool at its disposal to counter these unreasonable measures,” the USTR said on X.
“Should responsive measures be necessary, U.S. law permits the assessment of fees or restrictions on foreign services, among other actions. The United States will take a similar approach to other countries that pursue an EU-style strategy in this area,” they added.
In 2025, the EU, using its landmark technology laws, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), stepped up its regulatory scrutiny against Silicon Valley giants.
Notably, Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) was fined $3.5B by the bloc for anticompetitive practices in the online ad market; Apple (AAPL) was fined $570M for app store limitations; X was fined $140M for breaching transparency rules; and Meta (META) was hit with a $230M fine over the “pay or consent” advertising model.
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