Trump Threatens EU with New Tariffs After Google Fine

Washington – 25 July 2026: US President Donald Trump has escalated the conflict with the European Union over its digital regulations. One day after the European Commission decided to impose fines totaling 890 million euros on Google, Trump announced a formal investigation into the EU’s trade practices on Friday. At the same time, he raised the prospect of additional tariffs against the bloc, without specifying their scale, timing, or the goods concerned.

The trigger is two Commission decisions dated 23 July. Google must pay 460 million euros for favoring the display of its own services in its search engine. A further 430 million euros concerns rules in the Google Play app store that, in Brussels’ view, prevented companies from effectively directing customers to alternative and often cheaper purchasing options.

The European Commission considers both practices to be violations of the Digital Markets Act. The regulation requires major digital platforms not to use their market power to favor their own offerings and to provide business users with fairer opportunities to access customers. Google had already been designated a particularly significant digital gatekeeper for its search engine in September 2023.

Trump described the penalties against US technology companies as unlawful and ethically unacceptable. The European Union would pay a very high price for them, he said in a social media post. In addition to Google, he named Apple, Meta and Amazon. According to him, the announced investigation is intended to determine whether the EU is treating American companies unfairly through its rules and fines.

The statement increases trade-policy uncertainty between Washington and Brussels. An investigation is not yet a new tariff decision. However, Trump has explicitly threatened substantial tariffs if his administration concludes that US companies are being disadvantaged. The Commission, by contrast, bases its measures on the enforcement of European competition and platform law, which is intended to apply to all companies concerned.

For Google, the decisions combine financial consequences with requirements to adapt its business operations. The Commission clearly distinguishes between favoring its own services in search results and restrictions on purchase links in Google Play. Both proceedings concern core areas of the digital daily lives of consumers and app developers in the European Union.

There was initially no official response from the European Commission to Trump’s latest announcement. The dispute now links two areas of conflict: European oversight of major online platforms and the already strained trade relationship between the EU and the United States. Whether Washington will actually impose new tariffs remains open following Trump’s announcement of 24 July.