By Edith Hancock

Europe's top antitrust enforcer travels to Washington D.C. to meet her U.S. counterparts this week, timing that throws the tension between them into sharp relief, with President Trump set to announce planned tariffs on Wednesday.

Teresa Ribera's trip--which combines a gathering of antitrust lawyers with a meeting with Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew N. Ferguson and top officials from Mexico and Canada--also comes as her department wraps up investigations into Apple and Meta under the Digital Markets Act, the European Union's digital antitrust law.

The DMA rulebook--and the EU's broader antitrust enforcement against Big Tech--has drawn ire from the Trump administration, which warned it would factor in how regulators target American companies in its approach to trade policy. A recent U.S. trade report dedicates several pages to EU laws and the DMA, which officials say impede American companies with fines. The DMA allows the EU to fine Big Tech companies up to 10% of their annual turnover if they violate the rules.

Some are concerned that the EU's ambition to curb Big Tech's market power could become a casualty in Trump's latest trade war.

The European Commission--the executive arm of the EU--opened investigations into Apple, Meta and Google in March last year, setting itself a soft deadline of 12 months to finish the probes. Ribera has repeatedly told the media in recent months that the commission won't delay or reassess antitrust enforcement with Trump in office, and would stick to its deadlines in Big Tech probes.

But March came and went. The commission issued so-called preliminary findings to Google in two of its probes last week, but the timing of the delivery of the final verdicts on the Apple and Meta cases is still uncertain.

"I think they are overcautious," Tommaso Valetti, a professor at Imperial College Business School in London, said. It isn't unusual for civil servants to want to test the water now, but delaying announcing the next steps could undermine credibility, Valetti said.

"They are already signaling there is a margin of negotiation that is out there," said Valetti, who was chief economist at the European Commission during Trump's first term.

EU officials have taken pains to take the heat out of enforcement against companies under the DMA this year. When the commission issued recent decisions against Google and Apple, Ribera said her team is focused on "creating a culture of compliance" with the law, and that the EU applies the law in a non-discriminatory way. She made no mention of possible fines.

Brussels-based antitrust advisor Anne MacGregor said Ribera is very likely to stick to that line in Washington.

"It's an awkward time, full-stop, because we are seeing regulatory, digital and antitrust enforcement in Europe being used as a bargaining chip in broader EU-U.S. transatlantic relations," she said.

Tech companies have been lobbying hard on either side of the Atlantic. Apple representatives first met with Ribera right before a key deadline on a probe into how it should let rival device manufacturers access its iPhone and iPad operating system. Meta executives have asked U.S. officials to fight an expected fine and cease-and-desist order under the DMA, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

"I think it's very serious precisely because the advisors to Trump now are some of the tech oligarchs, so these people are participating directly in the negotiations," Valetti said.

But EU officials have also highlighted common ground between the U.S. and EU, with American antitrust officials taking cases against the likes of Apple and Google.

A commission spokesperson said the DMA applies equally to all large digital actors operating in the EU regardless of where they are based, and that the U.S. would be justified in enforcing its own rules against European companies. "If a U.S. company active in the EU is found to be in breach of EU rules, we will not be pressured into turning a blind eye," they said.

Write to Edith Hancock at edith.hancock@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 01, 2025 12:46 ET (16:46 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.