{"id":1535290,"date":"2025-05-10T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1535290"},"modified":"2025-05-10T14:30:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T18:30:00","slug":"president-trumps-stake-in-europes-mauling-of-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/president-trumps-stake-in-europes-mauling-of-apple\/1535290\/","title":{"rendered":"President Trump’s Stake In Europe’s Mauling Of Apple"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump’s Stake In Europe’s Mauling Of Apple<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Robert Bork, Jr, via American Greatness,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The European Commission\u2019s half-a-billion-euro fine slapped on Apple\u2014and a \u20ac200 million fine on Meta\u2014is a reminder that protectionism is a global trend, not just an element of the Trump agenda. <\/strong>Worse than the magnitudes of these fines is the message that they send: the European Union is determined to enforce its Digital Markets Act (DMA) to outlaw the basic business models that made Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon America\u2019s most innovative companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They are now explicitly targeted by this law as digital \u201cgatekeepers\u201d in need of wholesale restructuring.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

At home, the Trump administration\u2019s antitrust regulators continue complaints left over from the previous administration against these same companies. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Department of Justice Antitrust Chief Gail Slater are perhaps expressing the current administration\u2019s residual desire to punish big tech companies for their past censorship of conservatives. The massive fine imposed on Apple by the EU should put antitrust in a new context for the administration. If Europe wins, the American tech sector will be broken.<\/p>\n

If this sounds hyperbolic, consider what the DMA actually does. Apple has invested more than $100 billion in the last five years to produce products that are seamlessly and safely linked, providing levels of security and privacy valued by consumers worldwide. Central to Apple\u2019s success is the willingness of developers to create new apps with powerful capabilities for Apple customers. But Apple enforces conditions on developers. They are granted a degree of access to Apple systems, but not so much that they can steal Apple\u2019s proprietary algorithms or\u2014most importantly for antitrust\u2014access and exploit user data.<\/p>\n

For example, when developers create apps that rely on sound, Apple requires them to ask users for their permission before accessing their microphones. If developers want to record audio, they also must get explicit permission. Similar guardrails are in place for apps used for banking, gaming, and a variety of content and services. Developers can access Apple\u2019s Touch ID, but they cannot access data in the Secure Enclave inside the iPhone. Apple is like a bank that will allow access to a safe deposit box but won\u2019t allow rifling through other people\u2019s boxes.<\/p>\n

Taken literally, the law\u2019s demand for \u201cinteroperability\u201d with developers and competitors would force Apple to expose consumers\u2019 most sensitive data.<\/strong> The EU mandate would allow access to consumers\u2019 communications over iMessage\u2014whether 6-digit codes texted by banks, Wi-Fi passwords, or personal communications. Also at risk is data on AirPlay, CarPlay, and Siri. Every message, email, phone call, image, and calendar will be potentially exposed to myriad developers, sure to be exploited and likely to be resold on the international market. Thus, Europe, in the name of protecting consumers, will force the exposure of users\u2019 data, commoditizing it in the name of interoperability. It is a virtual certainty that some buyers will be cut-outs for China. As the FBI has warned, China \u201cuses elaborate shell games\u201d and overweight voting rights to control companies without tipping off its real ownership.<\/p>\n

Why is Europe doing this?<\/strong> It seems to be out of a mixture of progressive thinking and anti-Americanism. The largest seller of smartphones in Europe is Samsung, with 37 percent of the market. Add to that China\u2019s Xiaomi market share, and the two Asian giants have a combined 53 percent share of the European smartphone market. And yet it is Apple\u2019s 22 percent share that somehow defines it as a \u201cgatekeeper\u201d in need of radical restructuring. These latest fines for violating the DMA are eye-popping, but they continue an anti-American trend that has resulted in roughly $8 billion in fines imposed on another top American innovator, Google, over the past decade.<\/p>\n

Europeans might be forgiven for feeling whipsawed. The DMA and its companion Digital Services Act were drafted with the active encouragement of the Biden Administration and former FTC Chair Lina Khan, who was in constant dialogue with European regulators. But the attitude in America is now hardening. In a letter to EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan wrote that the provisions of the Digital Markets Act \u201cstifle innovation, disincentivize research and development, and hand vast amounts of highly valuable proprietary data to companies and adversarial nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, chair of the House antitrust subcommittee, noted that the fine \u201cis a tax on U.S. companies operating in the EU. Any trade deal with the EU or its member countries must address the unfair targeting of our most successful companies.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Will President Trump let this happen? <\/strong>Or will he rise to the occasion to defend America\u2019s most competitive companies? As President Trump engages the European Union in trade negotiations, he should seize this opportunity to stand up for American investors, innovators, and more than 5 million U.S. tech workers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSat, 05\/10\/2025 – 10:30<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/president-trumps-stake-europes-mauling-apple<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump’s Stake In Europe’s Mauling Of Apple Authored by Robert Bork, Jr, via American Greatness, The European Commission\u2019s half-a-billion-euro fine slapped on Apple\u2014and a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1535291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1535290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1535290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1535291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1535290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1535290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1535290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}