00:00They're starting a 301 probe into the practice of the European Union, he says, robbing U.S. firms.
00:08The European Union, he says, is at it again, taking direct aim at great American companies after having fined Apple
00:14for no reason at all.
00:15$15 billion, Meta, $3 billion, Amazon, $2.5 billion, and many others.
00:20We have just been informed that Google has been fined another billion dollars without explanation.
00:25I read down here, it's a very long post.
00:27He says, the U.S. is on a piggy bank for Europe, and a 301 investigation will be immediately initiated
00:34into the practice of robbing American companies, and in turn, the American taxpayer.
00:39Jeff, he says, the EU will pay a very big price for this illegal and highly unethical conduct.
00:45This sounds like a lot more than forced labor.
00:48Yes, it does, and let's unpack a little bit of that without even having seen the post, and thanks for
00:53reading it out loud, Joe.
00:54One thing I can tell you as a former EU correspondent is that the European Union, and particularly the European
01:02Commission, which is the EU's executive based in Brussels, has broad authority over antitrust.
01:07And their antitrust department or the part of the commission that does antitrust is the one or is the part
01:17of the commission that is taking on some of these big U.S. technology companies.
01:21That is not the same as trading practice.
01:25It's an antitrust practice, if I'm understanding correctly what the president is complaining about.
01:30So that would raise questions for me as a reporter about what kind of legal maneuvers or legal challenges that
01:37the EU might now take, not even with regard to retaliation, but with regard to fighting this measure in an
01:45international court of some kind.
01:47I don't know the answer to that, but just throwing that out there.
01:49But broadly, back to our discussion about what the president is thinking, the president doesn't see that differentiation.
01:56He sees it as Europe taking or attacking U.S. companies and taking money away.
02:02And so he's using the only thing that he often uses as a tool to prevent that, and that is
02:07these tariffs.
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