• Trump: if web-tax remains 100% duty on French exports

Share

December 03, 2019New President Donald Trump's commercial offensive, as a reprisal against the web tax, primarily against France. But the warning also concerns Italy, which in the Budget law for 2020 has set a rate of 3% for web giants. "The US will act against web tax regimes" that discriminate against American companies like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, Trade Secretary Robert Lighthizer warned, threatening punitive rates of up to 100% on 2.4 billion dollars of imports from France, from champagne to bags, from cheese to cosmetics. Not only. Washington also assesses a tightening of US tariffs already in force against the EU after the WTO's verdict on the Airbus case which - it has been established - continues to benefit from state aid, as a result of funding approved by previous governments.

Trump's new trade war was launched on the eve of the London summit and a few hours after the bilateral with French president Emmanuel Macron. The 90-day truce agreed by the US with Paris to attempt a web tax agreement expired last week without an agreement. And so Lighthizer yesterday disclosed the results of an investigation showing that France improperly taxes the American giants of the web. "It is a clear signal that the United States will act against web tax regimes that discriminate or impose disproportionate burdens on American companies," said Lighthizer, citing Turkey and Italy as possible targets, including Turkey and Austria.

The American administration is committed "to countering the growing protectionism among the Member States of the European Union that unjustly targets American companies, both with taxes on digital services and with other attempts directed against the main American digital companies", explained Lighthizer, citing "Section 301", a measure approved by Congress in 1974 that allows the administration to launch retaliatory commercial measures against foreign countries. It had not been used since the mid-1990s, or since the WTO was established to resolve international trade disputes. The web tax approved by Paris last July provides for a 3% tax rate on revenues exceeding 25 million euros in France and 750 million euros in the world deriving from the digital services of web companies. "My message is clear: we will never, ever give up our intention to tax technology giants properly," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire remarked, before the new tariffs raised by Washington.