Trump Says America Should Be Suing Tech Companies, Not EU

U.S. President Donald Trump lashed out at the EU on Wednesday (June 26) for its aggressive pursuit of U.S. tech companies and singled out EU antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager, saying she “hates America.”

The Financial Times is reporting that the president said lawsuits against tech companies like Facebook and Google should be coming from America and not Europe. Vestager is a popular figure in the EU, known as a tough regulator who has brought many tech companies to task with large fines and heavy regulations.

“She hates the United States perhaps worse than any person I’ve ever met,” Trump said. “What she does to our country. She’s suing all our companies. We should be suing Google and Facebook . . . They’re suing Apple. They’re suing everybody.”

Trump is headed to Japan for the G20 summit, and he has repeatedly lashed out at allies, including Canada, Mexico and the EU.

He also said that the defense alliance between the United States and Japan was not an even one.

“If Japan is attacked, we will fight World War III. We will go in and protect them with our lives and with our treasure,” Mr Trump said. “We will fight at all costs, right? But if we are attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us at all. They can watch on a Sony television.”

Trump has also said similar things about South Korea. Trump will meet German chancellor Angela Merkel at G20, who he hasn’t seen since publicly condemning her for not spending 2 percent of Germany’s gross domestic product on defense.

Vestager recently launched an antitrust case against Broadcom, a chipmaker in the U.S., saying that the company was using “contractual restrictions” to shut out rivals.

Vestager’s five-year term as commissioner is nearly up, and she has repeatedly denied any sort of bias.

In 2015, then president Barack Obama said her actions were driven by “commercial interests.” Brussels said his words were “out of line.”