The EU has agreed to impose retaliatory tariffs on €21bn (£18bn) of US goods, targeting farm produce and products from Republican states, in Europe’s first act of retaliation against Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The EU plans to introduce 25% tariffs on scores of goods from almonds to yachts, with the first duties being collected from 15 April, while the bulk apply from 15 May and the remainder from 1 December.
In a statement confirming the favourable vote by EU member states, the European Commission said: “The EU considers US tariffs unjustified and damaging, causing economic harm to both sides, as well as the global economy.”
The tariffs include US soya beans, grown abundantly in Louisiana, the home state of the House of Representatives speaker, Mike Johnson.
Ahead of the vote, analysis of the leaked list of customs codes by Politico found that EU duties would hit up to $13.5bn (£10.6bn) worth of exports from red states, including beef from Kansas and Nebraska, cigarettes from Florida and wood products from North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.
The EU is facing calls to target US tech firms or banks in future retaliation, a potent but politically explosive target, as the US runs a €109bn (£94bn) trade surplus with the EU in service industries.
The outlook for negotiations is uncertain, amid questions over whether Trump’s goal is to create leverage over other countries – suggesting tariffs could be rolled back – or to raise revenues and reindustrialise the US, which points to their longevity.
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I mean they could go 250% on the yachts
25% on tech services is where you'll see America panic.
How? Most multi-national companies are invoicing locally, or at least regionally.
They are subsidiaries of US companies. You draft a list of wholly or majority US owned tech subsidiaries, and you tax them out of the wazoo, done.
I'm sure tax and trade experts can come up with better approaches.
And now we're even further into fantasy land. Governments don't make tax laws targeting specific individuals or companies, you don't want them to do that. They don't target Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, they target yacht sales and capital gains.
God I love the "it's so easy!" crowd.
And I love impotent people.
Governments can and do target individuals, see sanctions on russian oligarchs. How is your memory so bad?
Plus, new tax rules are drafted every single year, to encourage or slap down specific stuff, why you acting like it's impossible when it's not even rare?
But they still 'import' the provided service. I wonder if they can actually manage to get a company like netflix to pay import duties on foreign (read: us) made content, but if they find a way we're talking about a serious amount of money.
A tax on tech services would crush the US economy. And to be honest, every country should be taxing outside tech services - its a substantial risk to just hand out that data to foreign corporations and a substantial risk of lock in.
It doesn't work like that though. I (Netflix USA Ltd.) do hereby grant a license to you (Netflix Ireland Co.) for my complete catalog for $0/year. You're not even charging people to watch my content, it comes free with their monthly subscription. If you want to advertise your service just buy some impressions from Facebook UK. All hosted by AWS in the EU.
I'm sure there must be some taxable services, I just can't think of any examples, and I'm pretty sure it's not the people that you're thinking of.
Yea it's a better position to try and take them on IP control.
I assume deals like this go out the window if they also mean Netflix Ireland can't take Irish people to court for copyright infringement.
No physical good crosses a border, which is the point when a tariff has to be paid normally. The cargo isn't allowed into the country unless the tax is paid.
Internet sevice providers could easily be roped into policing this. If you have a website with a paid service you can charge them a fee based on their monthly rates or the ISP gets a shutout notice for your business. You could even compel visa and mastercard to snitch on their accounts to get accurate subscription numbers without hassle.
They could shoot a guy in the face who places an order for a yacht for all i care.
Good odds that guy is going to be an assistant or something.