By Edith Hancock


President Donald Trump said he has issues with the European Union's treatment of the world's most powerful American companies, criticizing the bloc's multi-billion euro fines on Big Tech as a form of taxation.

"The EU treats us very, very unfairly, very badly," he said Thursday during a question and answer session following his video address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, adding that the region's lengthy and complicated bureaucracy makes it harder for businesses to compete and grow.

Trump hit out at a string of high-profile fines the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, has handed tech giants Apple and Google in recent years that have wound up in court.

"They won billions from Google," he said, also singling out a state aid case Apple lost last year leaving the company with a 13 billion-euro ($13.53 billion) tax bill in Ireland. The region is after "billions and billions" from Meta Platforms' Facebook, he said.

The EU fined Meta EUR797.7 million in November after an antitrust probe into its Marketplace seller platform, and has issued some EUR8.25 billion to Google in the last decade.

"These are American companies whether you like them or not, they are American companies and you shouldn't be doing that," he said, "as far as I'm concerned it's a form of taxation, so we have some very big complaints with the EU."

Trump's comments come just as the commission is expected to move forward with several investigations against Apple, Google and Meta under the Digital Markets Act, a relatively new EU law designed to regulate competition in the tech sector. Companies face hefty fines under the DMA if the regulator decides they are flouting the rules.


Write to Edith Hancock at edith.hancock@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-23-25 1531ET