US Threatens to Retaliate Against EU Firms Over Digital Tax

The Trump administration threatened retaliation against the European Union in response to efforts to tax American tech companies, singling out prominent companies, including Accenture Plc, Siemens AG and Spotify Technology SA, as possible targets for new restrictions or fees.

“If the EU and EU Member States insist on continuing to restrict, limit, and deter the competitiveness of U.S. service providers through discriminatory means, the United States will have no choice but to begin using every tool at its disposal to counter these unreasonable measures,” the Office of the US Trade Representative said in a social media post on Tuesday.

The USTR named several other European companies, including DHL Group, SAP SE, Amadeus IT Group SA, Capgemini SE, Publicis Groupe and Mistral AI, which it said have enjoyed unfettered access to the US market for years.

Trump administration officials have accused the EU of flouting the terms in its trade deal with the US, specifically the bloc’s commitment to “address unjustified digital trade barriers.”

Trump has also repeatedly criticized digital taxes as non-tariff trade barriers that harm American businesses — and he’s threatened “substantial” tariffs on countries that impose them. The US president has already won some retreats, including Canada’s June decision to scrap a digital levy hours before it was scheduled to go into effect.

However, the EU has moved ahead with enforcement of its digital regulations, recently imposing fines worth hundreds of millions of dollars against Apple Inc., Meta and Elon Musk’s X social network.

The so-called digital services taxes levied by European nations on US companies have long been an irritant for US policymakers. Congress considered targeting the measures with a provision in Trump’s signature tax cut legislation that would have imposed a “revenge tax” on countries the US deemed “discriminatory.”