US President Donald Trump lashes out at EU for unfairly targeting Apple, Google and Meta

Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump has slammed the European Union for imposing big fines on American tech companies like Google, Apple and Meta, according to a Bloomberg report. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump called the fines “a form of taxation”. This year, the big tech companies had to pay hefty fines to EU, with Google being the highest payer. As per reports, Apple paid around $2.7 billion as fine to EU

“They won $15 or $16 billion from Apple. They won billions from Google. I think they’re after Facebook for billions and billions,” Trump said at the conference. “These are American companies,” he continued. “Whether you like them or not, they’re American companies, and they shouldn’t be doing that. That’s, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a form of taxation. So, we have some very big complaints with the EU.”

A report by Proton had revealed that Google had to pay the maximum fine for abusing its market position. Its parent company, Alphabet, paid a total fine of $2.9 billion, which also included a $2.5 billion penalty from the European Union.

Apple too had to pay huge fines. The report reveals that the Cupertino-giant paid $2 billion to the European Union or the EU for violating streaming rules.