{"id":2378,"date":"2026-07-24T21:23:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T21:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arabnewsmonitor.com\/2026\/07\/24\/trump-threatens-eu-over-robbing-american-companies\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T21:23:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T21:23:48","slug":"trump-threatens-eu-over-robbing-american-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/?p=2378","title":{"rendered":"Trump threatens EU over \u2018robbing American companies\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels must stop using the US as a \u201cpiggybank,\u201d the American president warned<\/strong><\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump has announced that he is opening a trade investigation into the EU, after Brussels fined Google $1 billion for violating its competition laws. Trump added that the investigation will likely end in new tariffs on the bloc.<\/p>\n

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump said that the US will \u201cimmediately initiate a 301 Investigation\u201d<\/em> into the EU\u2019s \u201cpractice of \u2018ROBBING\u2019 American companies.\u201d<\/em> The EU, he added, \u201cwill pay a very big price\u201d<\/em> for its decision on Thursday to fine Google \u20ac890 million ($1 billion) for prioritizing its own services over those of competitors in search results.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter having fined Apple, for no reason at all, 15 billion dollars, Meta, 3 billion dollars, Amazon 2.5 billion dollars, and many others, we have just been informed that Google, a truly advanced and amazing group, has been fined yet another 1 billion dollars,\u201d<\/em> Trump wrote. \u201cThis brings the Google total to over 18 billion dollars.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States of America is not a \u2018PIGGYBANK\u2019 for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!\u201d<\/em> he warned.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"A
EU squeezes another $1 billion out of Google<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In addition to Thursday\u2019s fine, Google lost a years-long legal battle against a separate \u20ac4.6 billion ($5.2 billion) EU antitrust fine earlier this month. The European Commission imposed the fine in 2018, accusing Google of abusing Android\u2019s market dominance by requiring smartphone makers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s figure of \u201c18 billion dollars\u201d<\/em> is misleading. Google has been fined roughly $12 billion by the European Commission over the last decade, with separate penalties imposed by national regulators.<\/p>\n

A 301 investigation is a US government inquiry into whether another country\u2019s trade policies are unfair, discriminatory, or damaging to American commerce. Trump said that such an investigation into the EU\u2019s fines against US tech companies will likely result in \u201ca substantial tariff\u201d<\/em> being placed on the bloc \u201cat the earliest possible moment.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The fines handed down to Google this month alone will cover more than 2% of the EU\u2019s annual common budget. With its finances stretched from arming Ukraine, a European Commission spokesperson told Politico last week that the payout from Google will help alleviate the bloc\u2019s growing budget deficit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle\u2019s involuntary \u2018contribution\u2019 to the EU budget is now greater than that of two-thirds of the member states,\u201d<\/em> US Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg noted in a post on X on Friday. \u201cEnough is enough.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brussels must stop using the US as a \u201cpiggybank,\u201d the American president warned US President…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}