The United States threatened countermeasures against the EU on Tuesday over the bloc’s efforts to tax American firms, pointing to major European companies as potential targets.

But the European Union swiftly vowed to keep enforcing its tech regulations “without discrimination.”

In a social media post, the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office criticized the EU and certain member states for their “continuing course of discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines, and directives” against American service providers.

It warned that if the bloc and its members pressed on with moves deemed to deter the competitiveness of US companies, Washington “will have no choice but to begin using every tool at its disposal to counter these unreasonable measures.”

The post also signaled that key European businesses could be targeted in response, listing Accenture, DHL, Mistral, Siemens, and Spotify among others.

Thomas Regnier, a spokesman for the European Commission, however, responded that “as we have made clear many times, our rules apply equally and fairly to all companies operating in the EU.” (AFP)