U.S. President Donald Trump issued a statement on social platforms on Friday local time, saying that any country that imposes a "digital services tax" on U.S. companies will face "100% tariffs" on its exports to the United States. Trump emphasized that this tariff will "override any trade agreement signed or proposed with that country" and that the United States will "immediately implement" relevant tariff measures once the relevant country advances its digital tax plan.
Digital service taxes usually target large technology companies with large volumes and highly digital businesses, especially American technology giants such as Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon. Therefore, they have long been criticized by Trump as "an unfair practice that specifically targets American companies." The report pointed out that more than a dozen countries have implemented digital service taxes. Trump specifically named them in his statement. "Many European countries" are considering or promoting related taxes.
The Trump administration has repeatedly used tariffs as a countermeasure in the past and has promised to retaliate against countries that impose digital services taxes. Last year, he threatened that the United States would interrupt all trade negotiations with Canada if it insisted on advancing its own version of a digital services tax. Canada subsequently announced that it would shelve the plan before the tax was about to take effect.
However, there is still uncertainty about whether Trump’s threat can be successfully implemented at the legal level. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump's previously proposed global "reciprocal tariff" plan, which attempted to set different personalized tariff rates for almost all countries based on the level of other countries' tariffs on the United States. The Supreme Court ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize the president to unilaterally impose such wide-ranging global tariffs.
Hours after this setback, Trump announced that he had signed an executive order in accordance with Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a unified 10% tariff on global imported goods. However, according to this provision, such tariffs can only last for a maximum of 150 days. If they need to be extended, they must be approved by Congress. This also casts a shadow of uncertainty on the legal basis of Trump's "100% digital tax retaliatory tariffs".
At present, Trump has not clearly stated which law he will rely on to "immediately" impose 100% tariffs on relevant countries, but his statement has undoubtedly intensified the international disputes surrounding the digital services tax, and has also made the already friction-filled trade and technology regulatory relations between the United States and some European countries become tense again.