Former President Donald Trump is expressing his frustration with how European Union (EU) regulators are handling American technology companies like Google, Meta (the parent company of Facebook), and Apple.
At a recent event called the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump criticized the EU, suggesting that their actions against these U.S. tech giants are essentially a way of imposing extra taxes on them. He believes that the legal cases the EU has brought against these companies are unfair and could be seen as a kind of financial punishment.
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One specific case he mentioned involved Apple, which lost a legal battle last year over a hefty tax bill of €13 billion (about $14.5 billion) in Ireland. In 2024, the EU’s highest court, located in Luxembourg, ruled that Apple had received illegal tax benefits from the Irish government between 1999 and 2014. As a result, the company was ordered to pay back those taxes.
Bloomberg, a financial news outlet, has suggested that this disagreement between Trump and the EU is likely just the beginning of a heated exchange that could continue throughout his second term in office.
Currently, Google, Meta, and Apple are under investigation by the EU for possible violations of a new set of rules called the Digital Markets Act, which aims to create fairer competition in the digital market.
