US President Donald Trump has ramped up threats against countries that have digital taxes, promising “subsequent additional tariffs” on their goods if those nations do not remove such legislation.
Sources said earlier that the Trump administration was considering imposing sanctions on European Union or member state officials responsible for implementing the bloc’s landmark Digital Services Act.
Many countries, particularly in Europe, have levied taxes on the sales revenue of digital service providers, including Alphabet’s Google, Meta’s Facebook, Apple and Amazon. The issue has been a longstanding trade irritant for multiple US administrations.
“With this TRUTH, I put all Countries with Digital Taxes, Legislation, Rules, or Regulations, on notice that unless these discriminatory actions are removed, I, as President of the United States, will impose substantial additional Tariffs on that Country’s Exports to the USA., and institute Export restrictions on our Highly Protected Technology and Chips,” Trump said in a social media post on Monday (Tuesday AEST).
In the post, Trump claimed that such legislation was “designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology” and that it gave a pass to firms from US tech rival China.
Trump has also previously threatened to impose tariffs on countries like Canada and France over differences related to the digital services taxes.
Australia is currently weighing whether introduce an ‘ex-ante’ regime, which would levy fines of up to $50 million on digital platforms that engage in anti-competitive behaviour.
The proposal has been widely panned by the Big Tech giants, with Apple using a report last month to warn that the European Union’s Digital Market Act (DMA) has resulted in “several unintended consequences”.
Trump in February ordered his trade chief to revive investigations aimed at imposing tariffs on imports from countries that levy digital service taxes on US technology companies.
With Justin Hendry
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