Sounding off: Donald Trump has long expressed anger at the number and size of fines the EU has imposed on US tech firms over the years. Now, the US ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, has warned that these penalties and overregulation by the continent could affect the EU's participation in the AI economy.
Speaking to Ian King on CNBC's Europe Early Edition, Puzder said, "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."
"You know the very companies that can bring you the data, the data centers and the American AI hardware stack," he added. "If you regulate them off the continent, you're not going to be a part of the AI economy."
This isn't new ground. In August 2025, President Trump promised to slam all countries whose taxes, legislation, and regulations target US firms with additional tariff and export restrictions. He added that America and American tech companies are no longer the doormat or piggy bank of the world.
EU competition chief Teresa Ribera has defended its regulation of US tech giants, emphasizing last year that those operating in the continent follow its laws and respect European values.
Over the last 12 months, the EU has given Washington plenty of ammunition for that argument. The most eye-catching penalty arrived in September 2025, when the European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion ($3.3 billion) over its adtech business, accusing the company of favoring its own services and harming rivals, advertisers, and publishers.
A few months earlier, in April 2025, the Commission also handed Apple a €500 million ($568 million) fine under the Digital Markets Act over App Store anti-steering rules, while Meta was hit with a €200 million ($227 million) DMA penalty tied to its data-consent model.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 5, 2025
National regulators have been joining in, too. France's CNIL fined Google €325 million ($369 million) in September 2025 over ads shown in Gmail inboxes and cookie-consent failures, while the European Commission fined X €120 million ($136 million) in December 2025 under the DSA over issues including deceptive blue-check verification and ad-transparency shortcomings.
This week saw another potential fine from the EU set into motion against a US firm. The Commission announced it has opened formal proceedings to investigate whether social media platform Snapchat is in compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA) over child safety online.