United States President Donald Trump ranked on Friday as “very unfair” the fine of 2.95 billion euros (R $ 18.73 billion) that the European Commission has applied to Google on charges of abuse on the online advertising market and warned that its government will not allow sanctions against the American company.
“This is added to the many other fines and taxes that have been imposed against Google and other American technology companies in particular. Very unfair, and the American taxpayer won’t tolerate it! As I said before, my government will not allow these discriminatory actions to continue!” Trump wrote on the social network after learning the news.
In a statement issued on Thursday (4), the European Commission said the penalty to Google was imposed to “violate the antitrust rules of EU by distorting competition in the advertising technology sector (Adtech), by“ favoring its own online advertising technology services to the detriment of competitors of advertising technology services, advertisers and online editors ”.
According to the political website, Google’s global chief of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, said the company will appeal the European Commission’s decision.
“It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will damage thousands of European companies, making it difficult to profit,” said Mulholland.
The US president reported that sanctions take money from the company that “otherwise would go to investments and jobs in the US”, and ranked Brussels’ decision as a new “blow” against “a large American company.”
In addition to the economic sanction, the European Commission has given Google a 60 -day deadline to end these practices.
The fine is the second highest ever imposed by the government of the European bloc because of monopoly abuses, behind the sanction of more than 4 billion euros ($ 25.4 billion) also to Google for violating competition rules through the Android operating system.
By 2017, the company had already been convicted by the commission to pay 2.42 billion euros (R $ 15.37 billion) for favoring its own price comparison service over competition.
The US president also remembered a $ 17 billion fine to Apple that, in his opinion, “should not have been charged.”
“We cannot allow this to happen to the brilliant and unprecedented American innovation. If this continues, I will be forced to start a lawsuit under section 301 to nullify the unfair sanctions being charged from these American companies that pay taxes,” he said.
This provision of the 1974 Commerce Law allows the US government to take commercial reprisals, including tariffs or restrictions, against countries that, in their opinion, carry out unfair or discriminatory business policies to the detriment of US companies.
Minutes later, Trump published another message demanding that Europe will stop practice.
“Google has also paid $ 13 billion in complaints and false charges, totaling $ 16.5 billion. How absurd is that? The European Union should stop this practice against US companies immediately!”
This is not the first time Trump criticizes Europe for sanctioning American technology companies that do not comply with their parameters.
He has already said before these fines and European regulations aim to undermine the growth of American technology companies and even suggested that they want to favor the Chinese industry.
