President Donald Trump admitted to CNBC Monday there were concerns about Google and Facebook monopolizing the digital marketplace, but he indicated that the United States would handle concerns differently than the European Union.
“Every week, you see them going after Facebook and Apple, and all of these companies, they’re great companies, but there is something going on, but I will say the European Union is suing them all the time,” he said in an interview on CNBC.
Trump said that the European Union had extracted billions of dollars from America’s digital companies.
“They’re actually attacking our companies,” Trump said.
He said it was unclear if American tech companies actually deserved the lawsuits from the E.U., which he described as “easy money” for Europe.
“I think it’s a bad situation, but, obviously, there is something going on in terms of monopoly,” he said.
Pointing to Attorney General William Barr, Trump said the United States will not file similar anti-trust lawsuits against the companies.
“We are going to maybe look at it differently. We have a great attorney general. We’re going to look at it differently,” he said.
Trump said that the social media companies opposed him in the 2016 elections, but he still won the presidency.
“People talk about collusion, the real conclusion between the Democrats and these companies,” Trump said. “They were so against me during my election run. Everybody said, ‘If you don’t have them, you can’t win.’ Well, I won, and I’ll win again because we are doing well.”
During a discussion about competition with China, the president boasted of the Silicon Valley “geniuses” in America.
“They don’t have near the capability of our geniuses in Silicon Valley that walk around in undershirts, and they’re worth $2 billion apiece, okay?” he said. “They don’t have nearly the genius that these people have.”