President Donald Trump on Friday threatened a 100% tariff on imports from any country that imposes a tax on digital services provided by United States companies.
In a social media post, Trump took aim at European countries, he said, that are discussing the“imminent” implementation of taxes on American companies.
“Please let this statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America,” Trump wrote.
He added that the new tax would supersede any previously negotiated trade deals. Trump said the penalty would apply to any country that moves forward with such a tax, but he singled out European nations in his post.
Trump has repeatedly pushed against foreign efforts to tax or regulate American tech giants. Last year, he threatened new tariffs on any country that moved to do so. A post from last August said that digital taxes and regulation “are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology.”
The threat comes ahead of Trump’s July 4 deadline for the European Union and the United States to approve a tariff deal that caps tariffs on most EU exports at 15%.
The deal followed months of debate within the EU after European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen tentatively struck the deal while visiting Trump’s golf course in Scotland.
Digital taxes were not part of the agreement and have remained a sticking point between the US and the European bloc.
Trump has repeatedly made it clear he wants to tackle so-called non-tariff barriers to trade – and strict European regulations on technology and environment are in his crosshairs. For the US leader, those rules hinder US exports.
Earlier this month, Trump threatened to impose a 100 per cent tariff on French wine and champagne unless Paris removed its digital services tax on technology firms.
In 2019, France imposed a three-per-cent levy on the revenues earned by technology firms, including US giants Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google’s parent, Alphabet, within the country’s borders.
