U.S. President Donald Trump declared on Friday his intention to impose retaliatory tariffs on nations that impose digital taxes on American tech companies. When queried about signing an order related to digital taxes, Trump responded affirmatively.
\"We are going to be doing that, digital. What they're doing to us in other countries is terrible with digital, so we're going to be announcing that,\" he stated.
A White House fact sheet released earlier this month emphasized, \"Though America has no such thing, and only America should be allowed to tax American firms, trading partners hand American companies a bill for something called a digital service tax.\" It continued, \"Canada and France use these taxes to each collect over $500 million per year from American companies. Overall, these non-reciprocal taxes cost America's firms over $2 billion per year.\"
In recent years, several European countries have actively pushed for digital taxes targeting large tech giants like Google, Amazon, Apple, and Meta, a move that has been strongly opposed by the United States.
During Trump's first term, he initiated a \"301 investigation\" into the digital services taxes of several trade partners, accusing these measures of unfairly impacting American businesses.
After Joe Biden assumed office, the United States reached a compromise with Austria, Britain, France, Italy, and Spain in October 2021 regarding the digital services tax dispute. They agreed to address the issue under the framework of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)'s global tax deal.
However, on his first day back in office on January 20, Trump signed a presidential memorandum stating that the global corporate minimum tax deal achieved under the OECD framework had \"no force or effect\" in the United States, effectively withdrawing from the agreement negotiated by the Biden administration with nearly 140 countries.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
