Paying too little tax. Invading privacy. Creating dangerous monopolies. EU officials never seem to run out of sticks with which to beat American multinationals – and they are getting increasingly aggressive in using them.

So systematic has the harassment become that the US is now fighting back, accusing the Europeans or unfairly targeting its corporate giants.

That is wrong in itself – but it also has worrying implications for British businesses. Put simply, we’re next.

If the Americans are right – and they surely are – that the EU is turning into an inward-looking club, using tax and monopoly investigations as form of backdoor protectionism to discriminate against companies from outside the bloc, then once we are outside we are likely to be targeted as well.

The likes of HSBC, Vodafone and GlaxoSmithKline can expect to face bizarre forms of discrimination. We need to work out ways of standing up to that – by teaming up with the US, negotiating the right kind of Brexit, and developing other markets.

In the last week, the US’s patience with the EU’s aggressive attacks appears to have finally snapped. As a decision looms on the EU’s lengthy investigation into Apple’s tax arrangements in Ireland, in which it is today expected to have to pay billions in a settlement, the US Treasury accused the EU of trying to become a “supra-national tax authority”, and, in effect, of systematically discriminating against American businesses and in favour of its own.