The Trump administration is increasingly on a collision course with the European Union over Big Tech fines.

Google, Apple and Meta are contesting fines from the EU over violations of the bloc’s antitrust and competition laws, which total over 6 billion euros, or $7 billion, since the start of 2024.

They’re an increasing bone of contention, as both companies and the White House say the fines reflect the bloc’s hostility to innovation, while the EU tells CNBC that its tough line is getting companies to make decisions that benefit consumers.

Six fines have been imposed since 2024:

• March 2024: Apple fined €1.84 billion under antitrust rules for abusing its dominant position in the market for the distribution of music streaming apps.
• November 2024: Meta fined €797 million under antitrust rules over practices benefiting Facebook Marketplace.
• September 2025: Google fined €2.9 billion under antitrust rules for anti-competitive practices in its advertising technology business.
• April 2025: Apple fined €500 million for failing to comply with “anti-steering” obligations. Meta fined €200 million under the Digital Market Act for requiring users to consent to sharing their data with the company or pay for an ad-free service.
• December 2025: X fined €120 million under the Digital Services Act for breaching transparency obligations.

“All companies doing business in the EU are accountable to the European people and should respect the rules meant to protect them,” a Commission spokesperson told CNBC, adding that fines would only relate to the conduct of firms’ operations in Europe that breach EU rules.

Donald Trump’s administration takes a different view.

It’s stepped up its criticism of the bloc, accusing it of over-regulating its tech firms and jeopardising Europe’s ability to benefit from the rise of AI.

In February, Trump signed a memorandum stating the U.S. would consider tariffs to “combat digital service taxes (DSTs), fines, practices, and policies that foreign governments levy on American companies.”

Fines against U.S. companies are the biggest source of friction on the economic relationship between the EU and the U.S., Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth Jacob Helberg told journalists last week, Reuters reported.

It’s not a new point of tension; Helberg also said that the EU had fined U.S. tech companies more than $25 billion in the past two decades.

“If the European Union is going to participate in the AI economy…They’re going to need data centers, data and access to the United States AI hardware stack, and you can’t overregulate and move the goal post on regulations and hit companies with huge fines,” U.S. ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder told Ian King on CNBC’s “Europe Early Edition” on March 27.

When approached for comment on how EU Big Tech fines were impacting U.S.-Europe relations, a U.S. Department of Commerce spokesperson referred CNBC to a November interview with Secretary Howard Lutnick. “Let’s settle the outstanding cases,” he told Bloomberg. “Let’s put them behind us.”

There’s a difference in opinion on the other side of the Atlantic.

“Fines imposed under EU competition law, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act serve, first as a penalty for breaking EU laws, and second as a deterrent to ensure that those EU laws are respected, both as a deterrent against re-offending for the company in question and to deter breaches by other market operators,” a Commission spokesperson told CNBC.

Europe is treading a line between being reliant on U.S. tech firms for much of its digital infrastructure — though governments are attempting to diversify tech suppliers and develop sovereign alternatives — and ensuring those companies adhere to its rules.

Meta changed its “pay or consent” offer to users of Facebook and Instagram in 2025 after a DMA non-compliance decision imposed a 200-million-euro fine, they said. The company would begin offering the new service to users at the start of 2026, the Commission said in a December statement.

When asked for comment, Meta directed CNBC to comments from Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan.

Kaplan said at the time that the EU’s fine was an attempt to “handicap successful American businesses,” adding that it “effectively imposes a multi-billion-dollar tariff on Meta while requiring us to offer an inferior service.”

Because the 6 billion euros in fines are being contested in court, the EU has not collected all of the money from companies in question, but fines are required by law to be covered by provisional payments or financial guarantees.

There are also several ongoing investigations by the European Commission into U.S. Big Tech companies.

In February, the Commission told Meta it intended to impose “interim measures” to stop it from excluding third-party AI assistants from WhatsApp as part of an ongoing investigation into the company.

The EU also opened formal proceedings in March to investigate whether social media platform Snapchat, owned by Snap, is in compliance with the Digital Services Act over online child safety.

Hyperscalers are significantly ramping up their AI capex spending — and increasingly using credit markets to fund it.

But investors say this shift is challenging mega-cap tech giants’ so-called ‘fortress balance sheet’ status, and rips up what they call the “unspoken contract” that kept speculative AI spending largely separate from debt markets.

After Amazon, Meta and Google-owner Alphabet all unveiled sizable increases in their full-year capex spending plans during earnings season, UBS data indicates that aggregated capex spend among AI hyperscalers could top $770 billion in 2026 — some 23% higher than previously expected.

In a Feb. 18 note, UBS credit strategists said such increases imply a $40 billion to $50 billion ramp-up in borrowing from hyperscalers, pushing public market debt issuance to between $230 to $240 billion this year.

Al Cattermole, fixed income portfolio manager at Mirabaud Asset Management, said this tilt toward the bond market is dramatically shifting the dynamic between hyperscalers and investors.

“For years, we’ve been told this AI spend would be funded by generated cash flow — that it is equity risk, it is speculative, and not to worry about it from a credit point of view,” Cattermole told CNBC in an interview.

“There now seems to be a change in the unspoken contract that while we would continue to lend to these businesses, really AI capex was still going to be equity or cash funded….By bringing capex spend into the debt markets, you now have the question of credit worthiness.”

Last September, Oracle tapped the bond market for some $18 billion in one of the biggest debt issuances on record. Others have rapidly followed, with Google-owner Alphabet recently issuing some $20 billion in debt, including a rare 100-year sterling-denominated bond.

“What if, in three years, these Nvidia chips get outstripped by a Chinese competitor, and I’m lending for five or eight years, and in year three, my data center is obsolete?” he said.