slaps

Tech giant fined for third time in a week after being hit with multimillion-dollar penalties in US and France.

The European Union has imposed a penalty of 2.95 billion euros ($3.45bn) on Google for favouring its own advertising services, marking the fourth time the tech giant has been fined in its decade-long fight with the bloc’s competition regulators.

The European Commission accused Google of distorting competition in the 27-nation bloc after investigating a complaint from the European Publishers Council, moving to rein in the tech firm despite threats of retaliation from United States President Donald Trump.

EU competition chief Teresa Ribera had originally planned to hand out the fine on Monday, but delayed her move after meeting opposition from EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic over concerns about the potential impact on US promises to lower tariffs on European cars under a trade deal agreed in July.

The Commission said Google favoured its own online display technology services to the detriment of rivals and online publishers and that it has abused its market power from 2014 until today.

“Google abused its dominant position in adtech, harming publishers, advertisers, and consumers. This behaviour is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” Ribera said on Friday.

Regulators had been probing Google over adtech since 2021 and in 2023 recommended the company sell part of its ad services to ensure fair competition.

Google, a subsidiary of US tech giant Alphabet, criticised the EU decision and said it would challenge it in court.

Lee-Anne Mulholland, the firm’s global head of regulatory affairs, said it required “changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money”.

“There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before,” she added.

Ribera said Google had to come forward with a “serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest”, warning that failure to do so would invite “strong remedies”.

The company has 60 days to inform the Commission how it plans to comply with this order.

The fine was the third imposed on the giant in a week. A US federal jury on Wednesday ordered Google to pay about $425m for gathering information from smartphone app use, even when people opted for privacy settings.

The same day, France’s data protection authority fined the search giant 325 million euros ($378m) for failing to respect the law on internet cookies.

Even as the United States slaps India with a 50 percent tariff, the highest among all countries so far and one that will push their relationship to its lowest moment in years, one thing is clear: US President Donald Trump is more interested in onshoring than friend-shoring, experts say.

On Wednesday, the US announced an additional 25 percent tariff on India over its import of Russian oil, taking the total to 50 percent. The move caught most experts by surprise as New Delhi was one of the first to start trade negotiations with Washington, DC, and Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have repeatedly admired each other in public statements and called each other friends. Brazil is the only other country facing tariffs as high as India’s.

“The breakdown of the trade negotiations was a surprise,” said Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of strategy and research at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

“This is a very difficult moment, arguably the worst in many, many years in their relationship and puts India in a very small group of countries that find themselves without a deal and with the highest tariff rates. They now need some pragmatic path forward and need to find a way to rebuild trust,” Nadjibulla said.

While the 50 percent tariffs, set to kick in in three weeks, have come as a shock, there has been a series of events in the past few weeks that hinted at disagreements between the two countries.

Just last week, Trump threatened that he would penalise New Delhi for buying Russian oil and arms, venting his frustration over an impasse in trade talks and referred to both countries as “dead economies”.

Negotiations deadlock

Last year, bilateral trade between India and the US stood at approximately $212bn, with a trade gap of about $46bn in India’s favour. Modi has said in the past that he plans to more than double trade between the two countries to $500bn in the next five years.

As part of the tariff negotiations, New Delhi had offered to remove levies from US industrial goods and said it would increase defence and energy purchases, the Reuters news agency reported. It also offered to scale back taxes on cars, despite a strong auto lobby at home pressuring it not to.

But it refused to remove duties from farm and dairy products, two politically sensitive sectors that employ hundreds of millions of predominantly poor Indians, and a stance similar to some other countries like Canada.

There are also geopolitical layers to what was supposed to be a trade conversation, pointed out Farwa Aamer, director of South Asia Initiatives at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York.

A very public one was the difference in perception on how the latest clash between India and archenemy Pakistan in May was brought to an end. Trump has repeatedly said that he mediated a ceasefire. India has repeatedly said that Trump had no role in bringing about a truce and has said that Modi and Trump never spoke during the conflict.

Pakistan, on the other hand, has said it will nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize and has so far walked away with deals with the US to explore its reserves of critical minerals and oil as its efforts to reset ties with the US play out after years of ambivalence under former US President Joe Biden, said Aamer.

All of this has caused unease for New Delhi, which is now trying to navigate a tough road. “This will test India’s foreign policy,” said Aamer, “and the question is if we will see it grow with the US even as it maintains its ties with Russia,” its longstanding defence and trade partner.

New Delhi has called Wednesday’s tariff “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable” and said its imports of Russian oil are based on its objective of securing the energy needs of its nation of 1.4 billion people.

But beyond that, “India doesn’t want to look weak”, said Aamer. “India has this global standing, and Modi has this global standing, so it has to hold its own. It will maintain its stance that its national security is driving its foreign policy.”

Robert Rogowsky, a professor of international trade at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said he expected “very creative diplomacy” in the “near term” as India and the US try to reset ties despite tensions.

“Strong-arming individuals like Modi will inevitably lead to shifts and counter-shifts,” he told Al Jazeera.

Adding instability

For now, India can focus on strengthening its bilateral trade agreements, said Aamer, such as the one it signed with the United Kingdom last month and another with the European Union, which is currently in the works.

India is also trying to stabilise relations with China –  just as Australia, Canada and Japan have done in recent months since Trump took office and hit allies with tariffs. Modi is planning to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit at the end of the month. It would be his first visit to China since the two countries had a face-off in 2020 in the Galwan River valley.

But the trade blow from the US also comes at a time when India has been trying to position itself as a manufacturing hub and as an option for businesses that were looking to add locations outside China.

In April, Apple, for instance, said all iPhones meant to be sold in the US would be assembled in India by next year. While electronics are exempt for now from the tariffs, a country with a 50 percent tariff tag on it is hardly attractive for business, and this just “adds to the instability and uncertainty that businesses were already feeling” because of all the Trump tariffs, Nadjibulla said.

“Trump has made it clear that he’s interested in onshoring rather than friend-shoring.”

July 11 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has announced a 35% tariff on all imports from Canada, reigniting a trade war with the United States’ closest ally and one of its most important trading partners, threatening to derail ongoing trade negotiations between the two.

Trump announced the tariffs in a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada on Thursday, stating the new punitive measures will go into effect Aug. 1.

“If for any reason you decide to raise your Tariffs, then, whatever the number you choose to raise them by, it will be added onto the 35% that we charge” the American president threatened.

Trump claims the tariffs are in response to fentanyl being smuggled into the United States over its northern border, for which he has already imposed a 10% tariff on Canada.

In response, Canada vowed to increase border security.

Statistics from the Government of Canada show that fentanyl seizures by U.S. border officials at the Canada-U.S. border represent less than 0.1% of U.S. fentanyl seizures between 2022 and 2024.

According to the statistics, only 59 pounds of the synthetic opioid were seized at their shared border between 2022 and 2024, compared to nearly 62,000 pounds seized at the southern border in that same timeframe.

“If Canada works with me to stop the flow of Fentanyl, we will, perhaps, consider an adjustment to this letter,” Trump told Carney in the letter Thursday.

“These Tariffs may be modified, upward of downward, depending on our relations with your Country.”

Trump said the tariffs are separate from the sectorial tariffs he earlier imposed, including a 50% levy on all imported steel and aluminum products, a 25% tariff on non-USMCA-compliant autos and auto parts and a 50% tariff on cooper imports, which has yet to take effect.

Canada has retaliated with a 25% tariff on tens of billions of dollars worth of U.S. products.

Trump’s trade war and threats to annex Canada have soured relations with the Great White North, with Carney — whose Liberal Party won parliamentary elections in late April largely on anti-Trump sentiment — describing the American president’s actions as a “betrayal” and turning to Europe in an effort to lessen Canada’s dependence on its southern neighbor.

Carney late Thursday issued a statement saying he is committed to working with the United States to “stop the scourge of fentanyl in North America,” while explaining he has “steadfastly defended our workers and businesses” in negotiations with the United States.

Trump’s tariffs were not mentioned.

“We are building Canada strong,” he said on X. “The federal government, provinces and territories are making significant progress in building one Canadian economy.”

The tariffs come as the United States and Canada had set a goal of signing a new trade deal by July 21.

Trump had called off trade talks last month over a new Canadian tax on technology firms generating revenue, but which was essentially rescinded by Carney hours before it was to go into effect in order for trade talks to resume.

The new tariffs on Canada came as Trump announced a flurry of economic levies on a number of countries.

Trump often turns to tariffs as a tool to equalize trade deficits, as a negotiation tactic and as an attempt to spur domestic industry.

US president also eyes blanket tariffs of 15 to 20 percent on other trading partners as his trade war widens.

President Donald Trump has announced that the United States would impose a 35 percent tariff on imports from Canada next month, while eyeing blanket tariffs of 15 or 20 percent on most other trading partners as he broadens his trade war.

In a letter released on his social media platform on Thursday, Trump told Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney the new rate would go into effect on August 1 and would go up if Canada retaliated.

It was the latest of more than 20 such letters issued by Trump since Monday, as he continues to pursue his trade war threats against dozens of economies.

The letter on Thursday came despite what had been warming relations between Trump and Carney.

The Canadian leader visited the White House on May 6 and held a cordial meeting with Trump in the Oval Office.

They met again at the G7 summit last month in Canada, where leaders pushed Trump to back away from his punishing trade war.

In an interview with NBC News published on Thursday, Trump also said that other trading partners that had not yet received such letters would likely face blanket tariffs.

“Not everybody has to get a letter. You know that. We’re just setting our tariffs,” Trump said in the interview.

“We’re just going to say all of the remaining countries are going to pay, whether it’s 20 percent or 15 percent. We’ll work that out now,” Trump was quoted as saying by the network.

In recent days, he also set new tariffs on a number of countries, including allies Japan and South Korea, along with a 50 percent tariff on copper.

On Friday, Myanmar, which was also hit by stiff Trump tariffs, pleaded with Trump for a reduction in the 40 percent tariff rate, with ruling Senior General Min Aung Hlaing saying he is ready to send a negotiation team to Washington if needed, according to state media.

Locked in talks

Canada and the US are locked in trade negotiations, hoping to reach a deal by July 21, and the latest threat seems to put that deadline in jeopardy.

Canada, as well as Mexico, are trying to find ways to satisfy Trump so that the free trade deal uniting the three countries, known as the USMCA, can be put back on track.

The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement replaced the previous NAFTA accord in July 2020, after Trump successfully pushed for a renegotiation during his first term in office.

It was due to be reviewed by July of next year, but Trump accelerated the process by launching his trade wars after taking office in January.

Canadian and Mexican products were initially hard hit by 25 percent US tariffs, with a lower rate for Canadian energy.

Trump targeted both neighbours, saying they did not do enough on undocumented immigration and the flow of illicit drugs across borders.

But he eventually announced exemptions for goods entering his country under the USMCA, covering large swaths of products. Potash, used as fertiliser, got a lower rate as well.