(A)Political - July 25th

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Good morning! Let’s jump into the weekly recap!

President Trump is now threatening more tariffs on the E.U. due to their fines against American tech companies. Saudi Arabia may have a path forward for nuclear development for non military purposes, but the country must accept normalizing relations with Israel for the U.S. to be on board. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has announced an endorsement in a pivotal U.S. Senate race.

• Trump: Tariffs May Be Imposed On E.U. Due To Big Tech Fines

• U.S. Offers Saudi Arabia Path For Nuclear Development, Deal Hinges On Acceptance Of Abraham Accords

• Whitmer Makes Endorsement In Pivotal U.S. Senate Race

Trump: Tariffs May Be Imposed On E.U. Due To Big Tech Fines

_{By: Atlas}

President Trump said Friday he would open a trade investigation into the European Union and impose what he called a "substantial" tariff on the 27-nation bloc, retaliation for the billions in fines Brussels has levied against American technology companies. The threat came a day after the European Commission fined Google 890 million euros, roughly $1 billion, for breaching the bloc's digital competition rules.

Writing on Truth Social, Trump accused the EU of "robbing" American firms and their taxpayers, and said the penalties against the tech giants would be "entirely reversed." The move puts fresh strain on a transatlantic trade truce that had appeared, only days earlier, to be holding.

The Threat

Trump framed the announcement as formal notice of action. "Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that we will immediately initiate a 301 Investigation into the practice of 'ROBBING' American Companies and, in turn, the American Taxpayer," he wrote. He said the EU "will pay a very big price for this illegal and highly unethical conduct" and predicted "a substantial TARIFF" at "the earliest possible moment," closing with "Stay tuned!"

He tallied the penalties American firms have absorbed, citing $15 billion in fines against Apple, $3 billion against Meta, $2.5 billion against Amazon, and a running total for Google he put above $18 billion. "The United States of America is not a 'PIGGYBANK' for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!" he wrote. He blamed the practice on the Biden administration, saying it began "during the first year of the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration" and would not continue under his own.

Some of Trump's figures could not be fully squared with the public record on their face, and he described the latest Google fine as issued "without explanation." The Commission had, in fact, published its reasoning the day before.

The Google Fine

The penalty at the center of the dispute was the first of its kind under the EU's Digital Markets Act, the 2024 law targeting the market power of the largest platforms. The Commission split the roughly $1 billion fine between two findings: about 460 million euros for giving Google's own shopping, travel, and other services preferential placement in search results, and about 430 million euros for barring app developers from steering customers toward cheaper options outside the Google Play store.

Teresa Ribera, the Commission's executive vice president for competition, called the action "decisive yet balanced," arguing that "the best products should succeed because they're better, not because they're owned by the company running the search engine." The Commission gave Google 60 days to change its practices or face periodic penalties of up to 5 percent of its average daily global revenue. Alphabet, Google's parent, reported $403 billion in revenue last year.

Google criticized the ruling and left open the possibility of an appeal. Kent Walker, its president of global affairs, called it "product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants," and said compliance would force the company to strip away real-time search features such as instant hotel and flight pricing and to weaken safety protections on Google Play. A Google spokesman, José Castañeda, struck a more conciliatory note toward Washington, saying the company appreciated "the engagement by the administration and U.S. government." Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft did not immediately comment, nor did the European Commission respond directly to Trump's threat, pointing only to its earlier briefings.

The fine is the latest in a long line. The EU has penalized Google repeatedly since 2017, including a $4.5 billion Android antitrust fine upheld on appeal this month and a $3.4 billion penalty last year over its advertising business.

Section 301 and the Tariff Wall

The tool Trump reached for, Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, allows the president to impose tariffs in response to foreign practices deemed unjustifiable, unreasonable, or discriminatory toward U.S. commerce. It has become central to his trade strategy since the Supreme Court struck down his broadest tariffs in February, ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize him to set them unilaterally.

Since that ruling, the administration has rebuilt its tariff program on other legal footings. Just a day before the Google threat, it imposed new duties of 10 to 12.5 percent on goods from more than 60 trading partners, including the EU and China, under Section 301, citing their alleged failure to curb imports made with forced labor. Those tariffs replaced a temporary 10 percent global surcharge, imposed under a separate authority, that expired Friday.

The forced-labor tariffs quickly drew a legal challenge. Hours after they took effect, two small businesses, backed by the Liberty Justice Center, sued in the U.S. Court of International Trade, arguing the administration was using Section 301 to reinstate tariffs the Supreme Court had already rejected. The suit contends that Section 301 duties have historically been targeted at specific countries and industries, and that Trump's broad application has no precedent. Unlike the emergency-powers law, Section 301 has been used regularly by past presidents, but a new probe of the EU's tech enforcement could take months to produce findings, even if tariffs followed sooner.

The Turnberry Deal at Risk

The threat lands against a trade truce that had only just steadied. Last fall, Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed an agreement at Turnberry, Scotland, capping U.S. tariffs on EU exports at 15 percent. European officials had breathed easier Friday when the forced-labor tariffs came in at 10 percent for the bloc, within the Turnberry ceiling.

Trump's post threatened to undo that. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer had warned earlier in the week that Brussels's posture toward American tech firms risked unraveling the Scotland deal. Bernd Lange, the German lawmaker who chairs the European Parliament's trade committee, said following through would be "destabilizing" and could push the dispute into the territory of the EU's Anti-Coercion Instrument, the so-called trade bazooka that permits retaliatory tariffs and other measures. "Otherwise not only will the Scotland deal collapse, but there will also be a significant escalation," he said, while noting that past Trump social media threats had not always translated into action.

EU officials, for their part, have maintained they answer to their own laws rather than outside pressure. Greer's office is already running several other Section 301 investigations, including a probe of manufacturing overcapacity across 16 trading partners and one into Germany's pharmaceutical pricing, leaving the EU facing pressure on multiple trade fronts at once. Whether the Google threat becomes another tariff or joins the list of warnings that never materialized is, for now, unresolved.

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