Trump threatens 100% tariff on European countries that impose digital tax

Donald Trump has threatened to place a 100% import tariff on any European country that imposes a tax on digital services from US companies. Writing on Truth Social on Friday, the US president said that “numerous European countries” had been discussing putting a digital services tax on American companies and that “some of these countries are close to actually doing this”. “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 continued. He added that the tariff would be immediately imposed and supersede any other prior trade deals that existed with the country. The threat could set off another saga in Trump’s global trade war, in which he has placed drastic tariffs on countries and economic blocs at once. If Trump followed through on his warning, it could set off a larger trade war between the US and EU if the 27-country economic bloc felt compelled to retaliate to the tariff hike. France, Spain and Italy impose a digital services tax of 3% on large companies working in their countries, while several other EU countries have either implemented or proposed similar policies. The UK has a 2% digital services tax that applies to social media platforms, large search engines and online marketplaces which have global revenues from digital services exceeding £500m , total UK revenues of over £25m and “derive value” from UK users. …