LONDON — President Donald Trump is emphasizing technological cooperation and innovation during his visit to the United Kingdom, but strict regulations and the prospect of billions in penalties levied against American tech companies remain one of the biggest sticking points in talks with his British counterparts.
In July, the British government designated both Apple and Google as having “strategic market status,” the first designations handed down under the U.K.’s recently enacted Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Act.
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But though White officials say that negotiations with the British government on the DMCC designations are still taking place — and occurring separately from the broader talks over a tariff framework — they could not say if their British peers planned to grant Apple and Google any sort of reprieve.
“Those are actively being negotiated, and those negotiations are ongoing,” one senior White House official told the Washington Examiner.
A second senior Trump administration official voiced frustration with the designations to the Washington Examiner, suggesting that the White House believes the UK is holding them as “leverage” while the finer points of the bilateral trade deal, the first announced following Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April, are finalized.
Late last month, Apple submitted a private response to Britain’s Competition Markets Authority, which handles enforcement of the DMCC, arguing the digital regulations would lead to unintended privacy and security harms for consumers, in addition to undermining incentives for foreign technology companies to invest in the U.K. market.
“We’re concerned these EU-style rules the UK is advancing are bad for users and bad for developers,” an Apple spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “This approach undermines the privacy and security protections our users have come to expect, hampers our ability to innovate, and forces us to give away our technology for free to foreign competitors. We will continue to engage with the regulator to make sure they fully understand these risks.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook was reportedly invited to attend the state banquet capping Trump’s Wednesday stay at Windsor Castle, but company representatives could not confirm his attendance.
Representatives for Google declined to comment, but Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced on Tuesday a nearly $7 billion investment into Britain’s artificial intelligence sector, including the opening of a billion-dollar AI data center in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire.
The DMCC mirrors the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, which previously labeled Apple and Alphabet as “gatekeepers,” collecting millions, if not billions, in fines from the firms in the process. Trump has railed against the DMA and other non-tariff penalties targeting American technology companies across the globe as he pursues his broader tariff and trade strategy.
“Look at what they do to our companies. They sue Apple, they sue Google. $17 billion they got from Apple on a lawsuit that they didn’t have a case,” the president told reporters during a July 8 Cabinet meeting regarding the monetary damages the EU was awarded over DMA violations. “They have, you know, judges that are European Union judges. They take so much money away from our country in terms of that, in terms of other things that they do.”
On Thursday, the final day of Trump’s visit to the U.K., he and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are expected to announce a technology agreement that government officials claim will establish a new “golden standard” for trans-Atlantic cooperation on the development of artificial intelligence, innovative semiconductors, and quantum technologies.
British Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Liz Kendall confidently stated that the partnership “will transform our lives.”
“Boosting our tech ties with the US will help us deliver the change people here at home expect and deserve. That means good jobs which put more money in people’s pockets, more investment in communities across the country, and new opportunities for our businesses and innovators.”
The US-UK technology partnership drew praise from the left-of-center Chamber of Progress on Wednesday morning.
“Combining the individual strengths of the trillion-dollar tech industries of the US and the UK is a win/win,” Kay Jebelli, the Chamber’s senior director for Europe, said in a statement. “Future success in the digital economy requires a robust tech ecosystem, and that means having best of class tools and services. On these solid foundations, British innovators and entrepreneurs will build the world class leading businesses of the future.”
The Trump administration has previously secured one major concession on Apple’s behalf from the British government.
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In August, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced that the U.K. government had dropped its efforts to require Apple to provide the government access to its users’ encrypted data, despite Apple claiming that the company itself did not have access to that information.
“Over the past few months, I’ve been working closely with our partners in the UK, alongside [Trump] and [Vice President JD Vance] to ensure Americans’ private data remains private and our Constitutional rights and civil liberties are protected,” Gabbard said at the time. “As a result, the UK has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a ‘back door’ that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties.”