Trump Threatens Tariffs After EU Slaps Google with €3 Billion Ad Tech Fine

By Staff, Agencies

President Donald Trump threatened retaliatory trade measures on Friday after the European Union fined Alphabet Inc.’s Google nearly €3 billion [$3.5 billion] for abusing its dominance in online advertising.

In a post on social media, Trump denounced the penalty as part of a pattern of “discriminatory” actions targeting US tech firms.

“This is on top of the many other fines and taxes that have been issued against Google and other American tech companies,” he wrote. “Very unfair, and the American taxpayer will not stand for it! My Administration will NOT allow these discriminatory actions to stand”.

The European Commission said Google had given its own ad tech services an unfair advantage, distorting competition. EU antitrust commissioner Teresa Ribera declared that “true freedom means a level playing field, where everyone competes on equal terms and citizens have a genuine right to choose”.

Google vowed to appeal the €2.95 billion sanction, which ranks as the bloc’s second-largest penalty against the company. “This move imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president for regulatory affairs.

The ruling adds to Google’s mounting liabilities in Europe, which now total almost €10 billion following previous fines over Android, shopping search, and AdSense. Critics argue that fines alone will not resolve Europe’s “broken adtech market”.

Angela Mills Wade of the European Publishers Council said Google could simply “write this off as a cost of business while consolidating its dominance in the AI era.”

The punishment comes at a fraught moment in EU–US trade relations. Trump has previously threatened “substantial” tariffs on countries imposing digital taxes or regulations affecting American companies. He has also used so-called 301 probes to justify tariffs, most recently against Brazil.

The fine coincides with continued scrutiny of Google’s advertising empire. In the US, the Department of Justice is expected to propose remedies that could include forcing the divestment of Google’s Ad Manager platform.

Ribera pointed to such possibilities, saying a “structural remedy” may be the only effective solution to Google’s conflicts of interest.

Google remains the world’s largest digital advertising company, expected to earn more than $205 billion in ad revenue this year, with most of it from search advertising.