Trump floats tariffs on wine in response to French digital tax plan, also warns Google over China
- The law signed by President Emmanuel Macron imposes a 3 per cent tax on the revenue of technology giants such as Facebook and Amazon.com in France
France has stuck to its plan to tax big multinational tech companies, defying US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that he might impose tariffs on French wine.
“It’s in all of our interest to move toward a just taxation worldwide for digital companies,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in Paris. Wine tariffs and the digital tax are “completely different issues” and shouldn’t be lumped together, he told reporters on Saturday.
It is the latest face-off between the self-proclaimed “Tariff Man” in the White House and a major European Union economy. The French tax and Trump’s response threaten to further strain transatlantic ties as the US and EU prepare to negotiate a limited trade agreement on industrial goods.
Trump on Friday raised the possibility of “substantial” retaliation against France. “It might be on wine, it might be on something else,” he later told reporters in Washington.
The law signed by President Emmanuel Macron imposes a 3 per cent tax on the revenue of technology giants such as Facebook and Amazon.com.
“We tax our companies, they do not tax our companies,” Trump said.
The tax, retroactive to January, affects companies with at least 750 million euros (US$845 million) in global revenue and digital sales of 25 million euros in France. While most of the roughly 30 businesses affected are American, the list also includes Chinese, German, British and French companies.
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“I’ve always liked American wines better than French wines, even though I don’t drink wine,” the president said Friday. He said he may impose the wine tariffs before a meeting of the Group of Seven meeting in late August.
Trump has imposed or threatened to levy tariffs on several countries to force changes in their trade or immigration policies. Last month, he promised to do “something” about French wine that he said is allowed into the US virtually tariff-free while France imposes duties on US wine, calling the arrangement unfair.
Meanwhile, Trump on Friday kept up his pressure on global tech giant Google days after his Treasury secretary ruled out any national security concerns over the company’s work in China.
Trump, in a tweet, did not offer any evidence of a problem with Google’s business in China but said if there were any issues, his administration would find out about it.
On Wednesday, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he and Trump had both had direct talks with Google’s chief executive and were assured that the tech company’s work with China was “very, very limited.”
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“The president and I did diligence on this issue, and we’re not aware of any areas where Google is working with the Chinese government in a way that in any way raises concerns,” Mnuchin told CNBC in an interview. “Google is an American company that wants to help out the US.”
Trump has repeatedly slammed US technology companies, such as Google and Facebook, alleging that they have discriminated against him and fellow conservatives in news feeds and other areas on their platforms. He met with Google CEO Sundar Pichai at a White House meeting last week and with a number of other top tech executives.
“People talk about collusion, I can tell you that the real collusion is between the democrats and these companies, because they were so against me during my election run,” Trump said to CNBC in June, when asked about the ongoing antitrust concerns surrounding these companies. “Everybody said if you do not have them, you can't win. Well I won, and I'll win again.”
