(The Epoch Times)—President Donald Trump says his administration will open a formal investigation into the European Union’s trade practices, threatening new tariffs over billions of dollars in fines leveled against U.S. tech companies.
In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump said the investigation would begin “immediately” under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to protect U.S. businesses against unfair trade practices with tariffs and sanctions.
He accused the EU of “robbing” U.S. companies and, in turn, American taxpayers.
“The European Union is at it again and, as usual, taking direct aim at GREAT American Companies!” Trump wrote, referring to European enforcement actions over recent years against Google, Apple, Meta, and Amazon.
Most recently, on Thursday, the European Commission fined Google 890 million euros, or about $1 billion, for violating the bloc’s Digital Markets Act.
The penalty consists of a 460 million euro fine (around $523 million) for allegedly giving Google’s own services preferential placement in search results, as well as a 430 million euro fine (around $489 million) over restrictions that the regulators said prevented app developers from freely directing customers to cheaper purchasing options outside the Google Play app store.
Google criticized the decisions and said it could appeal. The company has argued that the changes sought by European regulators would diminish useful search features and weaken safety protections on Google Play.
Siding with Google, Trump said this alongside other previous penalties against American technology companies “will be entirely reversed,” and that “a substantial TARIFF” would be imposed on the EU “at the earliest possible moment.”
“The European Union will pay a very big price for this illegal and highly unethical conduct, which I have consistently warned them about,” he wrote.
The president’s warning to the EU came as the Trump administration continues to leverage Section 301 to advance its trade agenda.
On Thursday, the United States imposed new tariffs covering goods from 60 trading partners, including the EU and China. The duties were generally set at 10 percent or 12.5 percent, based on findings that the affected economies had failed to impose or adequately enforce bans on imports produced with forced labor.
For the EU and several other major trading partners, the tariffs were calibrated so that the new duties, combined with existing U.S. rates, generally totaled 10 percent or 12.5 percent. Numerous products were exempted, including oil and gas, fertilizers, certain foods, aircraft, critical minerals, and others.
The new duties took effect as a temporary 10 percent global import surcharge expired early Friday. Trump imposed that surcharge in February under Section 122 of the Trade Act after the Supreme Court struck down much of his previous tariff program, which had relied on the president’s emergency economic powers.
