Trump says Tim Cook called him to complain about the European Union

Donald Trump said Apple CEO Tim Cook called him to discuss the billions of dollars that Apple has been fined in the European Union. Trump made the statement during his appearance on the PBD Podcast — and said that he won’t let the EU “take advantage” of US companies like Apple if reelected.

“Two hours ago, three hours ago, he [Cook] called me,” Trump said. “He said the European Union has just fined us $15 billion... Then on top of that, they got fined by the European Union another $2 billion.” In March, the EU fined Apple around $2 billion after finding that Apple used its dominance to restrict music streaming apps from telling customers about cheaper subscription deals outside the App Store. The EU later won its fight to make Apple pay $14.4 billion in unpaid taxes.

“He [Cook] said something that was interesting,” Trump said. “He said they’re using that to run their enterprise, meaning Europe is their enterprise. “I said, ‘That’s a lot... But Tim, I got to get elected first, but I’m not going to let them take advantage of our companies — that won’t, you know, be happening.’”

The Verge reached out to Apple with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

The call would make Cook the latest Big Tech executive to speak with Trump ahead of the election. During an interview this week, Trump said he spoke with Google CEO Sundar Pichai to complain about all the “bad stories” the search engine shows about him. Elon Musk recently spoke at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Trump over the summer “a few times,” according to the former president.