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  Title	How Donald Trump has changed EU vs Big Tech fight
  ID	28428421
  External ID	f9eeafb9c3896238be2ca7e48ad151d4
  Author	Sourabh Kulesh
  Published Date	Nov. 25, 2025, 11:43 p.m.
  Summary	Tech News News: The EU's stringent AI and digital market regulations faced backlash from tech giants and the US, particularly after Donald Trump's return to the presi
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  URL	https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/how-donald-trump-has-changed-eu-vs-big-tech-fight/articleshow/125573499.cms
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  Content ID	36074666
  Key	b990a8db-02cb-42e2-98da-f77535749334
  Content	It all started in 2016 when the European Commission wanted to address the privacy concerns of users in the European Union and the European Economic Area. The foundation of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was laid and multiple other countries followed their lead. The regulators started to build on these rules, self-appointing as global standard-setters for digital ethics, privacy and antitrust enforcement. The message was clear: If you want to sell to millions of Europeans, you play by Europe's rules. Soon after the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the European Union (EU) moved to position itself as AI's global regulator, proposing comprehensive legislation to hold tech companies accountable for safe AI deployment. But as the EU AI Act took shape, its increasingly 'tough' requirements threatened to constrain the very innovation it sought to govern. Meanwhile, in November 2022, the DMA officially entered into force with an aim to ensure a higher degree of competition in European digital markets by preventing large companies from abusing their market power. In May 2023, the regulation became applicable. Then came the backlash. Tech giants responded with legal challenges and appeals. Companies like Apple and Meta have appealed the European Commission's non-compliance decisions and associated fines. Microsoft and Google also retaliated but complied with some demands under the law. The AI law also saw its fair share of criticism. Siemens CEO Roland Busch and SAP CEO Christian Klein slammed the EU's AI Act, saying that 'the EU's regulatory approach is holding back progress.' In fact, Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands also said that the approach may become a reason for the region to fall behind the US and China on AI development. 'Our ambition seems to be limited to being good regulators. We've seen this in the data space [with GDPR], we've seen this now in the platform space, and now with the AI space,' Constantijn told CNBC in June 2024. But the world's 'digital referee' refused to back down, as generative AI began reshaping the global economy. Tech giants were grilled and fined, sending the landscape of global technology regulation in a seismic shift. In January 2025, Donald Trump returned as the US President and reports of Tech CEOs meeting with the President started to surface. Soon, the Trump administration started to take a harder line against European AI regulation. At the Paris AI Summit earlier this year, Vice President JD Vance rebuked, warning that 'excessive regulation' risked strangling the AI industry which is still in its infancy. EU's DMA and AI Act Explained In 2023, the European Commission designated, for the first time, six gatekeepers - Google-parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft - under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Under DMA, companies can be designated as 'Gatekeepers' if they provide an important gateway between businesses and consumers in relation to core platform services. In total, 22 core platform services provided by these gatekeepers have been designated. The six gatekeepers got six months to ensure full compliance with the DMA obligations for each of their designated core platform services. In case a gatekeeper does not follow the obligations laid down by the DMA, the Commission can impose fines up to 10% of the company's total worldwide turnover, which can go up to 20% in case of repeated infringement. Passed in early 2024, the AI Act is basically designed to put tough restrictions on tech and social media giants to propel better competition and 'kill' dominance of certain players. The rules essentially forced companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook-parent Meta and others to bring changes to their respective platforms. This approach is contrary to the US 'light approach', where tech giants are pushed to make voluntary commitments and certain executive orders that can be modified. The 'fight' between the regulators and tech companies largely centred around the High-Risk category, which covers AI used in critical infrastructure, education, employment, and more. For a company like Microsoft, Google, or OpenAI, having their foundation models or applications classified as 'high risk' triggers a heavy compliance burden. Under the law, they are required to prove their training data isn't biased, maintain detailed technical documentation, ensure human oversight, and achieve high levels of accuracy and cybersecurity. Unable to meet the requirements, they face the threat of fines up to 7% of global annual turnover for non-compliance. According to Pritam, co-founder and COO of Vibestudio, an India-based AI lab developing secure and on-premise AI systems for coding, automation and workforce productivity, the regulation is the reason why there's some level of competition. 'Google was able to reverse engineer and make Apple AirDrop work with non-Apple devices. And most Apple devices now use Type-C. Both of these are possible because of EU regulations and it has been a good thing that big tech portrays as if it is bad for us,' Pritam told The Times of India . 'Now Trump has put [the] entire US government's weight on Brussels to make this EU regulation friendly for US AI companies. If you don't own your compute, if your data lives in someone else's cloud, if your models depend on another country's ecosystem, then you're not sovereign. With or without the AI Act in force, those who invest early in domestic AI stacks like hardware, data, and model governance, will end up controlling the narrative,' he added. Brussels believed that just as the GDPR forced companies globally to adopt privacy standards, the AI Act would force US companies to build 'safe' AI for the whole world. When asked whether EU's rules served as a long-term aim of the EU's AI rules was to push US tech companies to invest more in the region, Aniket Tapre, founder and CEO of Neural Arc, said that the EU has always attempted to balance innovation with regulatory oversight. 'The long-term intent behind the AI Act was not solely to push US technology companies to invest in the region, although this would have been a natural consequence. The broader strategic goal was to establish global regulatory leadership and set a governance benchmark for responsible AI. In doing so, the EU expected major US companies to deepen local partnerships, expand compliance teams, and invest in European research programs. However, the primary intention was to shape global norms rather than create a direct economic incentive for US firms,' he told The Times of India. The revolt of the Tech Titans Companies like Google, Apple and Meta challenged the feasibility of the DMA, echoing that it will negatively impact the safe and secure experience. Google said it 'approached compliance with transparency and meaningful product changes, even where we have concerns that some rules will reduce the choices available to people and businesses in Europe.' Apple said that the commission unfairly targeted the company with moves that 'are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free.' 'The commission forcing us to change our business model effectively imposes a multibillion-dollar tariff on Meta while requiring us to offer an inferior service,' said Joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer, as per the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, as the AI Act moved from draft to law, the tone from Silicon Valley quickly changed. The explosion of Generative AI (GenAI) in 2023 changed the situation and AI was touted as the next big technological revolution. Big Tech started arguing that the EU rules' strict requirements on data transparency would force them to reveal trade secrets and open them up to massive copyright lawsuits. They argued that getting government approval before releasing a model would slow down innovation, leaving Europe behind while the US and China would surge ahead. For Ankush Sabharwal, founder and CEO of CoRover.ai, it comes down to AI investment and talent. 'There is a documented investment gap: US Big Tech AI spending in 2024 alone was estimated around €200 billion more than the entire annual EU budget. If you overlay that with the Trump administration's messaging that the US will lead AI and avoid 'over regulation,' it amplifies EU fears that too strict rules will push talent and capital out of Europe,' Sabharwal told The Times of India. US tech leaders realised that fighting the EU in European courts was a slow battle. This can be said on the basis of the fact that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) had recently upheld massive fines against Google and forced Apple to pay €13 billion in back taxes. Trump becomes US President; Next up: Trade War In the months leading up to the US election, tech CEOs began to meet with Donald Trump. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who Trump had once threatened with prison, reportedly had dinner with the former President. Zuckerberg's tone shifted noticeably; he publicly praised Trump. Tim Cook of Apple called Trump directly to complain about the EU's fines. Trump later recounted the conversation: 'Tim Cook called me up directly and he did it himself, didn't have to pay ten cents and I gave him 100% of what he wanted because he was right. I mean you cant compete with Samsung and ones paying a tax. But I said you got to gradually move your company here. But then 2 hours ago, 3 hours ago, he called me. He said I'd like to talk to you about something, Juan," Trump said. 'He said the European Union has just fined us $15 billion. I said that's a lot. I know the feeling because I get fined too in fake cases. But I don't know if his case is fake yet. But it's a lot. Then on top of that they got fined by the European Union another $2 billion. So he's a $17 to $18 billion fine. I even said about Apple, can you pay that? I mean do you have that kind? That's a lot of money. And he said something that was interesting. He said they're using that to run their enterprise, meaning Europe is their enterprise. And I said that's a lot. I said but Tim, I got to get elected first, but I'm not going to let them take advantage of our companies. That won't be happening,' he added. This looked like a strategy to reframe EU regulation not as a domestic policy issue for Europe, but as an attack on 'American Champions. Donald Trump's approach in the second term is about data, algorithms and fines. The Trump administration wants 'America First' and the EU rules like the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the AI Act as tools designed to handicap successful American firms. In September, after the EU upheld a fine against Google, Trump posted: "Europe today 'hit' another great American company, Google, with a $3.5 Billion Dollar fine, effectively taking money that would otherwise go to American Investments and Jobs. This is on top of the many other Fines and Taxes that have been issued against Google and other American Tech Companies, in particular. Very unfair, and the American Taxpayer will not stand for it! As I have said before, my Administration will NOT allow these discriminatory actions to stand. Apple, as an example, was forced to pay $17 Billion Dollars in a Fine that, in my opinion, should not have been charged — They should get their money back! We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these Taxpaying American Companies. Thank you for your attention to this matter" He threatened to use Section 301 of the Trade Act -- the same weapon used to launch the trade war with China -- to investigate EU digital taxes and fines. The message to Brussels was clear: If you fine our tech companies, we will tax yours. In September, Apple said the DMA should be repealed. "The DMA should be repealed while a more appropriate fit for purpose legislative instrument is put in place," Apple said in a formal submission to the European Commission as part of a consultation on the law. 'It's become clear that the DMA is leading to a worse experience for Apple users in the EU. It's exposing them to new risks, and disrupting the simple, seamless way their Apple products work together,' the tech giant said in a blog post accompanying its submission. In a speech in Paris earlier this year, Vice President JD Vance warned Europeans that their 'heavy regulation could kill AI.' 'We feel very strongly that AI must remain free from ideological bias and that American AI will not be co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship,' Vance told the European audience. The appointment of Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and a staunch crypto and tech deregulator, to head the Commerce Department further solidified this stance. Lutnick has publicly criticised the EU's 'anti-business' environment. Lutnick said that Europe should 'reconsider' its rules for big tech companies in return for lower US tariff rates on its steel and aluminium exports. 'They would like to have steel and aluminium as part of this package and we think it is very, very important that they understand our digital companies and they reconsider their digital regulations to be more inviting to our big companies,' Lutnick told Bloomberg. According to Tapre, 'Diplomatic pressure likely played an indirect role. The current geopolitical climate places significant emphasis on technology sovereignty and trade alignment.' 'The EU understands that without practical data-use pathways, European firms would struggle to compete with US leaders such as Google, OpenAI, and others. The Trump administration's assertive advocacy for US technological primacy created additional pressure for Europe to rethink certain data restrictions and align them with global competitive realities,' he said. 'Excessive regulatory friction would widen that gap. The US administration's emphasis on AI leadership, national competitiveness, and strategic investment intensified European concerns. This dynamic contributed to the EU's decision to slow down the rollout of certain provisions and allow firms more time to adapt. Europe's objective is to protect citizens and uphold ethical standards while ensuring that local AI companies remain competitive against heavily capitalised US firms,' he added. All in all, Trump successfully communicated that the US government will no longer act as a passive observer while its most valuable companies are regulated by foreign powers. He turned the tech regulation into a trade issue, and forced the EU to postpone its policy implementation with the full application of high-risk AI rules being pushed back. Instead of the August 2026 deadline, the new proposal makes the deadline conditional. 'The formal justification from Brussels is framed around 'simplification,' innovation, and giving providers more time to comply, as seen in the Digital Omnibus and the shift of high risk AI deadlines into 2027. However, it would be naïve to say US pressure was irrelevant: reporting already links the current easing to lobbying by US tech firms and concerns raised by the Trump administration about Europe over regulating American AI champions. My view: diplomatic pressure was a meaningful but not dominant factor. EU competitiveness anxiety and internal industry pushback were at least as important,' said Sabharwal.
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  Publisher Name	India Times (#342)
  Publisher URL	https://www.indiatimes.com
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  Citation Flow Score	52

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