A decision to delay an EU sanction against Google at the last minute confirmed suspicions that trans-Atlantic trade tensions have enveloped antitrust, triggering claims that law enforcement in Europe is a political pawn in Donald Trump’s trade reset. While high-profile cases are occasionally snagged in politics, watchdogs still curate an image of dispassionate crime busting. But the signal is clear: critics will be emboldened to exert political pressure — and they might succeed, even at the last gasp.
An 11th-hour decision to delay an EU sanction against Google confirmed what many suspected: trans-Atlantic trade tensions have enveloped antitrust, triggering claims that law enforcement in Europe has become a “pawn” in Donald Trump’s politics. The European Commission has long nurtured an image as a dispassionate, neutral enforcer, but the suspension over US trade concerns jeopardizes that picture, signaling to politicians in Europe and America, as well as companies, that political pleas can get traction — right up to the last second.
Competition enforcers take their quasi-judicial roles seriously. The rose-tinted view is that they prosecute crimes, and no amount of political pressure or corporate caterwauling can change that. In reality, decisions frequently require political finesse, and decision makers frame their delivery so as not to anger a government, be it in Europe, China or America.
That image was shattered this week when the EU’s competition chief, Teresa Ribera, saw her plan to sanction Google shelved at the last minute by the team of commission president Ursula von der Leyen. The suspension came after Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s trade commissioner navigating fraught talks with Washington, opposed the sanction, as MLex reported (see here).
The fining of American Big Tech companies by foreign regulators is a particular bugbear of the US president, even if his administration is also pursuing them, sometimes on similar grounds.
But in Europe, the move has split opinion. Either the suspension of the fine is selling out Europe’s hard-won regulatory credibility, or it is a pragmatic move when swathes of the real economy are trembling over the threat of foreign tariffs.
EU lawmakers lined up to criticize the move, saying Europe shouldn’t succumb to tariff threats. Germany’s influential Monopolies Commission said that antitrust was at risk of becoming a pawn in Trump’s geopolitics (see here).
— DOJ e-mail —
The prospect of a fine also triggered an intervention from Trump’s Department of Justice, which wrote to Ribera over the weekend, seeking a delay to the announcement.
To officials on the ground in Brussels, an e-mail from the DOJ's antitrust chief, Gail Slater, was both unusual and unexpected, coming as it did from a sister agency engaged in a similar battle with Google.
DOJ sources say Slater’s letter was anything but adversarial and was merely encouraging greater alignment on timing in the broader battle against Google. The DOJ advocates shielding antitrust from the trade tensions, and not conflating it with disputes over tech-specific legislation. Slater is understood to support keeping clear lanes for antitrust and trade matters, at a time when trade disputes are muddying the waters on all other policy fronts.
Such a division may be common ground for EU and US enforcers: They prefer to have politics kept far away from their investigative work. But ultimately it was the European Commission itself — through the intervention of trade chief Šefčovič — that delayed the fine. The EU's executive arm may be guilty of denting its own carefully safeguarded image.
— Tech laws v. antitrust enforcement —
While enforcers on both sides have sought to protect antitrust cases from being dragged into the vortex of Trump’s trade reset, they both have ample experience of political interference. Over the decades, probes into companies such as GE, Honeywell, Microsoft and Boeing have played out against — and have fed — trans-Atlantic tensions.
More recently, former EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager — no fan of Big Tech and with a reputation for being fearless — low-balled a fine against Meta Platforms in November 2024 to avoid attracting the ire of a newly-elected Trump. The penalty ended up at 798 million euros (around $930 million) — significantly less than many sanctions imposed on other US tech giants in recent years.
Then, early this year, as tensions between the EU and the US deepened, incoming fines under the Digital Markets Act against Apple and Meta were pulled as EU negotiators were touching down in Washington to negotiate a trade deal. The fines appeared a couple of weeks later.
The adtech fine on Google may yet appear in the coming weeks but, for some, the damage has already been done. Rarely have such political considerations erupted into the open, just hours before adoption. The message is clear: external pressures can override the EU’s internal law enforcement.
That will reverberate with enforcers around the globe, who may end up pulling their punches and shying away from stringent remedies to avoid upsetting Washington.
— Trade fears —
Antitrust aficionados and enforcers have always been deeply protective of their corner of the law. But political pragmatists will argue that rattling such legal purists for the much bigger prize of a trans-Atlantic trade deal is a price worth paying.
Pushing ahead with a Google sanction that could jeopardize the health of entire European industries would be narrow-minded, they argue. US retaliation could derail ongoing talks.
The US-EU trade arrangement from July remains fragile, and the commission is pinning its hopes on securing additional tariff relief for its most exposed industries. The bloc’s automotive sector is top of that list.
European carmakers face paying an extra $500 million to the US for the month of August alone if Washington reneges on an offer to reduce tariffs from 27.5 percent to 15 percent. That’s one of the things keeping Šefčovič busy these days.
To see US duties on EU cars and parts drop from 27.5 percent to 15 percent, Washington has pressed Brussels to advance legislative proposals cutting EU tariffs on industrial goods and some farm products. The commission is also working on two additional fronts: alcohol and metals.
An escalation of trade tensions between the EU and the US serves "no one except our global strategic rivals," Šefčovič said today at a press conference: "We should have people in mind, their jobs, their wellbeing and their future."
As for the case into the technology powering online adverts, he said he had been in regular contact with competition boss Ribera in recent days and supported her (see here).
In short, the political pragmatists argue that vast swathes of the European economy are exposed to the shifting sands of the trade deal, so now is not the time for a fine that could wait until relations have settled.
The immediate health of such European industries may take precedence for now. But the longer-term damage to the EU's law enforcement is real.
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