Trump says he will impose retaliatory tariffs on digital taxes

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US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would impose retaliatory tariffs on countries that impose digital taxes on US technology companies.

Asked whether he would sign the order on digital taxes, Trump answered in the affirmative.

"We're going to do it, digitally. What they're doing to us in other countries is terrible with digital, so we're going to announce that." He said.

"Although America has no such thing, and only America should have the right to tax American companies, trading partners are passing the bill to American companies for something called the digital services tax," according to a fact sheet issued by the White House earlier this month.

"Canada and France are each collecting more than $500 million a year from U.S. companies through these taxes," the White House said. "In total, these unreciprocated taxes cost U.S. businesses over two billion dollars a year."

In recent years, several European countries have been actively pushing for the introduction of digital taxes on the activities of large technology companies such as Google, Amazon, Apple and Meta in their countries, which the United States has strongly opposed.

During Trump's first term, he launched a "301 investigation" into the digital services taxes of several trading partners, accusing these tax measures of unfairly impacting US businesses.

After Joe Biden took office, the United States reached a compromise on the digital services tax dispute with Austria, the UK, France, Italy and Spain in October 2021, and agreed to resolve the issue under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Global Tax Agreement.

However, on his first day back in office on January 20, Trump signed a presidential memorandum stating that the global minimum corporate tax agreement reached at the OECD has "no force or effect" in the United States, effectively withdrawing from the agreement that the Biden administration had negotiated with nearly 140 countries.

CMG/ gnews.cz - RoZ

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