Scoop: European regulators blame President Donald Trump for antitrust delays, ignore his big plans for big tech
“Apple’s addiction to the People’s Republic of China is not consistent with President Trump’s plans to Make America Great Again,” a source close to the Trump administration told us...
European insiders have used President Donald Trump’s recent election to excuse delays in a series of antitrust cases against Apple, Google, and Meta.
A senior European Union (EU) diplomat familiar with the EU’s thinking said in comments to the Financial Times that European regulators’ approach to tech is “a whole new ballgame with these tech oligarchs so close to Trump.”
A spokesperson for the European Commission — the EU’s top big tech regulator — was noncommittal when asked about a timeline for the antitrust cases, saying that “all of these cases” remain at the “technical level” and are not yet subject to review.
President Trump’s record on antitrust enforcement, and his plans to crack down on online censorship, haven’t lessened concerns across the Atlantic.
President Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) began a sweeping review of big tech’s dominance in 2019, followed by the DOJ’s antitrust complaint against Google for allegedly monopolizing search in October 2020, and the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) lawsuit against Meta for monopolizing social networking shortly thereafter.
The Trump administration has already announced plans to hire key enforcers with strong records of reining in big tech, personnel picks who are popular among Republicans, according to polling obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter.
In December, Trump committed to naming Gail Slater as head of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division.
Trump said in support of Slater that “Big Tech has run wild for years, stifling competition in our most innovative sector and, as we all know, using its market power to crack down on the rights of so many Americans, as well as those of Little Tech!”
Trump also named Andrew Ferguson — a skilled lawyer and Hill veteran who led the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh — to run the FTC. Ferguson recently committed to ending “Big Tech’s vendetta against competition and free speech.”
And, Trump tapped antitrust lawyer Mark Meador, who led Sen. Mike Lee’s (R., Utah) efforts to break up Google’s digital advertising monopoly, to join Ferguson as a Commissioner at the FTC.
Although Apple has donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently allowed a Chinese spyware app named after Mao Zedong’s “Little Red Book” to run rampant in the App Store, where it is currently the most downloaded app.
A source familiar with the incoming administration’s thinking on antitrust said that “Apple’s addiction to the People’s Republic of China is not consistent with President Trump’s plans to Make America Great Again. Tim Cook is lighting money on fire ahead of the inauguration because he knows Apple is going to be in the hot seat for the next four years.”
Trump’s incoming team has bipartisan support among antitrust hawks.
“People are policy, and I am eager to see the work of the incoming team of antitrust enforcers,” Slade Bond, a former senior DOJ official who led the House Antitrust Subcommittee’s Big Tech investigation, told the Reporter. “Monopolists should be running scared.”
Other American tech executives close to Trump have raised concerns about Apple.
Elon Musk has repeatedly criticized Apple’s fees and power, calling the company a “de facto global tax on the Internet.”
In a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, Mark Zuckerberg likewise showed his disdain for Apple. “The way they do the Apple Store, where they charge people 30 percent, that seems so insane that they can get away with doing that.”
Time will tell whether European enforcers will actually hold Apple and other tech monopolies accountable, or whether they will continue to excuse their delays by blaming President Trump.