Von der Leyen threatens Trump with punishing US Big Tech.

BrusselsUnited States and the European Union they have given themselves a truce, but the trade war between the two major powers is far from over. The European Commissioner for Trade, Maroš Šefčovič, will travel to Washington again next Monday to meet with the US authorities and try to reach an agreed solution, but Ursula von der Leyen has warned Donald Trump that if negotiations fail, the European Commission remains ready to counterattack with all kinds of measures. And, for the first time, she has openly targeted the large US technology companies that have a dominant position in the European market, such as Meta –parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram–, X, Google and Apple.

The President of the European Commission had already warned that the EU has a legal mechanism calledanti-coercion which allows for responding to a trade offensive with extraordinary measures and through express legal means. However, in an interview with the newspaper Financial Times, the German leader has gone a step further and has specified that the European bloc could punish the big tech By raising taxes on the huge profits they make in the EU market. "We can apply a tax on the revenue they earn through advertising for digital services," the head of the EU executive specified.

The first member state to propose this countermeasure option was France, and the vast majority of European partners insist that the EU must be willing to use all the tools at its disposal. Furthermore, it could be approved without unanimity—only a qualified majority is required—and, therefore, Viktor Orbán's Hungary could not veto it, as it has done with other initiatives that have almost absolute support within the blog. Beyond Hungary, the only member state that has shown reluctance has been Germany.

On the other hand, Von der Leyen continues to maintain influence in the Trump administration and is open to relaxing European regulations to reach a trade agreement with the United States, which is one of the White House's requests. "I am open to looking at how we can align our rules and standards to facilitate business," responded the President of the European Commission. In this regard, EU Trade spokesperson Olof Gill stated that Brussels is traveling to Washington next week with the "intention of signing agreements." "We are focused on this and all options are on the table," the spokesperson added.

An opportunity to negotiate

At the EU Economic Ministerial meeting this Friday in Warsaw, the vast majority of member states closed ranks with Brussels and validated the truce the European Commission announced in the United States on Thursday. Thus, completely aligned with the EU executive, European finance ministers agreed that the partial postponement of Trump's general tariffs represents an opportunity to negotiate with Washington and avoid an escalation in the trade war. "It represents a first step toward a negotiated solution," said Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo.

In any case, European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Valdis Dombrovskis asserted that the tariff escalation will harm the US economy more than the European one. Specifically, Brussels estimates that the permanent implementation of the tariffs announced by Trump would have a negative impact on US gross domestic product (GDP) growth of between 0.8% and 1.4% until 2027. In contrast, the EU economy would only see its growth slowed by around 1.5%. And, if the affected powers retaliate with tariffs against the US, the economic consequences would be even more negative: between 3.1% and 3.3% for the United States, between 0.5% and 0.6% for the EU, and 1.2% for global GDP.