Trump Says EU Is ‘Taking Advantage’ With Google Fine

US President Donald Trump lashed out at the European Union’s $5 billion fine against Google in the latest trade-related salvo fired from the White House, according to Bloomberg.

The escalating trade conflict between the U.S. and EU surfaced in tense exchanges with NATO allies during Trump’s European visit last week. "I told you so! The European Union just slapped a Five Billion Dollar fine on one of our great companies, Google. They truly have taken advantage of the U.S., but not for long!" Trump said in a Twitter posting.

The U.S. is unlikely to match the European Union’s fine. Antitrust regulation is divvied up by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. While new FTC Chairman Joseph Simons told Congress that the agency will review the EU findings closely, the same agency closed its own probe of Google years ago.

EU Antitrust Commissioner Margrethe Vestager’s fine on Google comes just a year after slapping the company with a 2.4 billion-euro penalty for thwarting online shopping rivals. It’s the latest in a series of EU strikes on Silicon Valley giants that also included hefty back tax bills for Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., accused of receiving unfair fiscal deals from EU nations.

Trump said he was looking forward to a July 25 visit by EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who is coming to the White House to discuss the trade relationship. Trump, who is considering slapping tariffs on car imports from Europe, threatened “tremendous retribution“ against the EU if the meeting at the White House doesn’t go well.

“If we don’t negotiate something fair, then we have tremendous retribution, which we don’t want to use, but we have tremendous powers,“ Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. “We have to. Including cars. Cars is the big one.“

For its part, the EU is preparing a new list of U.S. goods to hit with retaliatory measures Trump moves ahead with the car tariffs. “If the U.S. would impose these car tariffs that would be very unfortunate but we are preparing together with our member states a list of rebalancing measures as well,“ EU trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom said.