Trump’s Tariffs For Regulating Digital Giants A Threat To Firms In Developing Economies

Chennai: India is one of the key countries that try to restrain digital giants such as commodity, apple and alphabet and try to reclaim fair competition through regulations. However, the efforts of the Trump administration to implement tariffs to organize digital giants find the UN’s trade organ, which will lead to high concentration in digital markets and threaten smaller companies in developing economies.

Between February 2020 and May 2025, Europe intervened in 263 competitions in the digital economy, and then Asia made 152 interventions. In contrast, the United States made 64 interventions: Africa 16 and Oceania 15.

Since the European Union has put into force DMA, the dominant “guard such as apple, commodity and alphabet targeted with strict rules to straighten the playground, 19 countries, including Australia, Brazil, India, Japan and England, followed the case with its own digital competition laws.

However, in February 2025, US President Trump announced a new measure within the scope of America’s first trade policy, the “Directive of Preventing Unfair Using American Innovation”. He promised to impose tariffs and trade restrictions in response to foreign regulations – especially those who influence digital markets – especially those who affect digital markets – in response.

The Executive Order completes the 2025 trade policy agenda, especially regulations, data localization powers and cross -border data restrictions aimed at the US companies as potential trade barriers.

Such policies will lead to high -intensified power of digital markets with significant power held by several dominant global platforms. When left uncontrolled, this concentration threatens to weaken competition, prevents innovation, weakens consumer selection and limits small companies to participate in the digital economy in a significant way – especially in developing countries.