"We will open an immediate 301 investigation against the European Union": The woman who caused Donald Trump to lose it
Following a series of massive fines on Google, Apple, Meta, and Amazon, the US President is threatening an immediate trade investigation and a "significant" tariff on the European Union.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas issued a sharp criticism on Friday regarding the logic behind the new tariffs imposed by Washington on imports from the EU, and completely rejected the American claim that EU countries are failing to monitor forced labor.
In an interview with the Reuters news agency, on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers' conference in Manila, Kallas said: "You cannot say that about the European Union." She added:
"If you compare our labor laws to those in the United States - we have paid leave, we have very good employment conditions for our workers, so it is simply not based on anything."
Donald Trump's response touched on another aspect of the economic relations between Washington and Brussels. The US President published a post on his social network, Truth Social, in which he lashed out at the European Union against the backdrop of a series of regulatory fines it has imposed in recent years on American tech giants.
Donald Trump wrote: "The European Union is doing it again, and as usual, targeting directly excellent American companies! After fining Apple, for no reason, $15 billion, Meta $3 billion, Amazon $2.5 billion, and many others, we have just learned that Google, a truly advanced and amazing group, has been fined again for another billion dollars, without any explanation. So the total fines on Google now stand at over $18 billion!"
According to him, "this illegal and discriminatory practice began at these high levels as early as the first year of the Joe Biden administration, but it will not continue under the Trump administration. The United States is not a 'piggy bank' for Europe, and we will not allow it to be one!"
The President announced that these remarks would serve as an official declaration of the "immediate" opening of a "301" investigation - a tool in US trade law that allows for the imposition of tariffs on countries that are discriminatory toward American companies - against what he called the "theft" of American companies and, indirectly, of the American taxpayer.
"The European Union will pay a very heavy price for this illegal and immoral conduct, about which I have warned them more than once," he wrote, adding that he expects the fines to be "completely cancelled" and that, at the same time, a "significant tariff" should be imposed on the EU "as soon as possible." He signed off the post with the words: "Stay tuned! President Donald J. Trump."
