A recent setback for the U.S. tech industry — nearly $800 million in European Union fines against Apple and Meta — could be just the push needed to refocus the industry’s global anti-regulation campaign on President Donald Trump.
Tech lobbyists have long been advocating for Washington to push back against the European Commission’s 2022 Digital Markets Act (DMA), a package of antitrust rules they argue unfairly target American tech giants.
On Wednesday, the first penalties under the DMA were announced: €500 million for Apple and €200 million for Meta, along with substantial demands for both companies to alter their business practices.
With the EU’s tech competition rules now directly impacting U.S. companies, “we’re starting to see the rubber hit the road,” said Katie Harbath, a former public policy director at Meta.
Following the penalties, Meta and top tech groups swiftly criticized the fines — referring to them as “tariffs,” a term that may have been chosen to draw Trump’s attention.
Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, stated in a Wednesday release that the €200 million fine against Meta, along with the required changes to its advertising model, “effectively imposes a multi-billion-dollar tariff on Meta while requiring us to offer an inferior service.”
Tech lobbyist Kay Hazemi-Jebelli, senior director for Europe at the Chamber of Progress (which is partially funded by Apple), called the fines an “escalation” in the transatlantic trade conflict, adding that the penalties should prompt the U.S. administration to focus on the DMA.
The Trump administration seems poised to respond: National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes described the fines as “a novel form of economic extortion,” asserting that such actions “will not be tolerated by the United States.”
“Extraterritorial regulations that specifically target and undermine American companies, stifle innovation, and enable censorship will be recognized as barriers to trade and a direct threat to free civil society,” Hughes said, calling for an end to what he termed “the EU’s regulatory death spiral.”
Harbath interpreted Kaplan’s use of the term “tariffs” as a clear attempt to link Europe’s tech regulations — including the DMA, which passed in 2022 and takes effect in 2024 — to Trump’s 2025 trade war rhetoric.
The tech industry’s relationship with Trump has been mixed. While top CEOs have publicly aligned with the administration, the Trump administration continues its antitrust investigations into Meta, Apple, and other tech giants.
“For Trump, it’s all about what’s in the best interest for Trump and the administration,” Harbath said. “These companies are just trying to do whatever they can around the edges to impact that.”
While Meta did not directly comment on whether it hopes Trump will target the DMA in upcoming trade talks, spokesperson Andy Stone highlighted a U.S. Trade Representative report that described the law as a non-tariff trade barrier. Kaplan also indicated in February that Meta “won’t shy away” from asking the Trump administration to defend the U.S. tech sector against EU regulations.
EU economic commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis is scheduled to meet with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday.
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment when asked if the DMA should be a point of negotiation in U.S.-EU trade talks. However, the spokesperson criticized the €500 million fine and the mandated changes as “bad for the privacy and security of our users” and argued that the penalties “force us to give away our technology for free.”
Harbath suggested that the EU may need to target more tech companies, possibly with larger penalties, before Trump’s administration takes action in response to the DMA.
“I think there’s going to need to be potentially more,” she said, speculating that the White House will likely only intervene if the EU targets high-profile companies like X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, which notably avoided fines under the DMA this time.