The European Union will retaliate by imposing additional taxes on US technology companies if talks with Donald Trump to scrap import duties on US goods fail, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters, adding that the EU would seek a “fully balanced” agreement with the US.
Image source: Maryna Yazbeck / Unsplash
At the same time, the head of the European Commission expressed readiness to sharply expand the transatlantic trade war to the services sector if negotiations with the American president reach a dead end and the previously announced duties on goods supplied from Europe to the United States come into force. She did not rule out the introduction of a tax on digital advertising revenues, which would hit large American companies such as Meta
Platforms and Google.
«”We are developing countermeasures. There is a wide range of countermeasures if the negotiations are not satisfactory. For example, it is possible to tax revenues from advertising of digital services,” von der Leyen said.
Also, in a conversation with journalists, the head of the European Commission noted that the trade war unleashed by Trump led to a “turning point in world trade.” “This is a turning point in relations with the United States, without a doubt. There are no winners in this – there are only losers,” she added.
Citing the need to continue negotiations with Washington, the European Commission this week announced it was suspending its planned retaliatory measures to increase tariffs on steel and aluminum shipped from Europe to the United States. The EU’s retaliatory measures were to cover a wide range of goods. Von der Leyen said the Commission had already tried to negotiate with the Trump administration, but so far that had led nowhere. She has publicly called for mutual removal of tariffs on industrial goods, but that has not found a response in Washington.
Von der Leyen also said that further retaliatory measures to the tariff hikes could target the huge surplus that American companies make in the services sector. She noted that President Trump only takes into account goods in his trade figures, but does not take into account the services that the US supplies to other countries around the world. “Companies that offer services do a good business in this [EU] market. And the vast majority of services, 80% of services, come from the US. So again, we want to negotiate a solution that is best for all of us,” the source quotes von der Leyen as saying.