President Trump on tech antitrust: ‘There’s something going on’

In an interview with CNBC, President Donald Trump criticized the antitrust fines imposed by the European Union on US tech companies, suggesting that these tech giants could, in fact, be monopolies, but the US should be the political body raking in the settlement fines. “Every week you see them going after Facebook, and Apple, and all of these companies that are, you know, great companies," President Trump said. "But I will say that the European Union is suing them all the time." “Well, we should be doing this. They’re our companies. So, [the EU is] actually attacking our companies, but we should be doing what they’re doing. They think there’s a monopoly, but I’m not sure that they think that. They just think this is easy money.” Responding to the question of whether tech giants like Google and Facebook were monopolies, President Trump said, “I think it’s a bad situation, but obviously there’s something going on in terms of monopoly.”

But President Trump stopped short of committing to what his administration would consider doing to crackdown on a monopoly. "I can tell you they discriminate against me," President Trump said when asked about companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon. “People talk about collusion. The real collusion is between the Democrats and these companies because they were so against me during my election run."