Hah if I were Apple I would have. Call their bluffs.

They never will, they’re too addicted to money. The optics are also bad that they are willing to play ball in China but won’t for Europe?

But like we all know it's a bluff so there's really no risk. If the EU regulators could successfully kick Apple out without massive backlash from their own citizens it would be a win. The vacuum Apple would leave behind would be massive and give a chance, albeit maybe a small one given Google and Samsung would pounce, for EU companies to fill.

As much as it would suck personally if the internet got partitioned by political region, China absolutely got this one right by kicking out foreign companies that don't bend the knee to let their own domestic industry flourish.

Why would the US leave Europe alone after acquiring and destroying Europe's mobile phone manufacturing business?

For starters, the US' own government has also launched an anticompetitive inquiry into Apple's behavior. It's ongoing as we speak, and by the looks of it Apple isn't behaving like a company with nothing to hide.

This goes beyond phones, maybe this would be the opportunity as well, starting with something like the Pi, to have the European consumer electronics being based again home made hardware and OSes, like up to the early 1990's, gotta lose our dependency on US computer brands, specially if the government turns yet again.

You wouldn't, because the shareholders would absolutely revolt. Europe is responsible for >20% of Apple's revenue.

And Google’s newly declared monopoly threatens to stop the 20B a year in basically free money they paid Apple to have Google be the default search provider. That 20B is 25% of services profits IIRC …

The risk with Apple calling the EU's "bluff" is that the EU may then to seek to break Apple apart into hardware and software divisions, and Apple will have handed the EU the ammunition they need to guarantee it happens.

How? If Apple left the EU entirely, closed all stores, shut down all EU operations, what jurisdiction would the EU have?

If Apple actually did that, then none.

But Apple's corporate tax structure requires them to be in the EU. It's not just the loss of EU revenues at stake; Apple would owe hundreds of billions more in taxes each year as a result of this "simple" suggestion.

their irish tax shelter thing maybe they move it to the UK not part of the EU and then that fixes things?>