The United States “will not” tolerate “the heavy fines imposed by the European Union on the American Apple and Meta Tech Giants, a spokesman for the White House, who described them as a” new form of economic extortion “on Thursday.
“The extraterritorial regulations that specifically target and undermine American companies, suffocate innovation, and allow censorship will be recognized as commercial barriers and a direct threat to a free civil society,” said Brian Hughes, spokesperson for the National Security Council.
The European Commission announced on Wednesday financial sanctions against Apple and Meta (Facebook, Instagram) for competition offenses, despite tensions with Donald Trump on customs duties. Apple received a fine of 500 million euros for abusive clauses in its App Store application shop, to the detriment of application suppliers and their customers.
Meta, a giant of social networks, will have to pay 200 million euros for its part for violating a rule framing the use of personal data.
A simple application of the law
Donald Trump regularly denounces taxes, fines and regulatory constraints imposed by Europe on American digital services. And for Brian Hughes, “the malicious targeting of American companies and customers by the EU must stop”. “Stop the infernal EU regulatory spiral!” He said in his press release.
The European Union is in full negotiations with the American administration to obtain customs duties imposed by the American president.
But according to the European Competition Commissioner, Teresa Ribera, these fines do not fit into this commercial showdown and represent “simply an application of the law”.
