Big Tech under fire due to Trump's trade war - report
Kyiv • UNN
Tech giants, having grown closer to Trump, have suffered amid his trade war. The EU may introduce a tax on advertising revenue, and TikTok has faced problems in the US due to tariffs.
Major technology companies have grown closer to US President Donald Trump, but have not received much in return, affected by his trade war, The Verge reports, writes UNN.
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"For a while, it seemed that US President Donald Trump would support Big Tech. Now the technology industry is collateral damage in his global trade war," writes The Verge.
On Thursday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put forward the idea of introducing a "levy on revenues from advertising digital services" if tariff negotiations with the US go awry. This would be the opposite result that technology executives such as Mark Zuckerberg were hoping for when they supported the new administration, the publication notes.
For someone like Zuckerberg, Trump was supposed to be a strong leader who would rein in the powerful EU. Instead, as noted, the rhetoric between the US and the EU is intensifying just weeks before the EU is already going to fine Meta (and Apple) for violating its Digital Markets Act.
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Although, of course, this is more of a self-inflicted wound, Elon Musk's popularity in the US has "reversed with the growth of his support for President Trump," wrote Nate Silver this week. Meanwhile, Tesla's stock price has lost more than a third of its value this year, and thanks to tariffs, the company has removed the ability to buy new American cars in China.
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TikTok has reportedly been particularly affected by Trump's extremely aggressive tariffs on China, which the country has vowed to "fight to the end." Despite the fact that for ordinary TikTok users it is still business as usual, the fate of the application in the United States, as indicated, seems increasingly shaky. When asked this week about extending the deadline for reaching an agreement on TikTok in the US, a representative of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said that the government "opposes practices that ignore the laws of the market economy, rob by force, and damage the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises."
"There won't be much dialogue until that's resolved," AppLovin CEO Adam Forugi, one of the potential buyers of TikTok, said this week about the tariffs. The situation is so confusing that the US stock market crash also "muffled the ability to draw conclusions" from shareholders about AppLovin's bid, Forugi told Bloomberg.
"If anything, this week is a reminder that the technology industry has become so large and influential that its leading companies have become tools for pressure between countries. In relatively peaceful times, this influence can be beneficial for Big Tech. When the situation becomes hostile, Big Tech finds itself in the crosshairs," the publication summarizes.
