Trump threatens to levy new tariffs against nations that 'harm' American tech firms and 'give a pass to China'

US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose new tariffs on countries that “attack” American tech companies, saying that digital taxes are meant to harm the tech interests of the US.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said, “As the President of the United States, I will stand up to Countries that attack our incredible American Tech Companies. Digital Taxes, Digital Services Legislation, and Digital Markets Regulations are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology.”

He added that such taxes and regulations “give a complete pass” to China and declared that if countries do not remove the legislation, then Washington will “impose substantial additional tariffs” on that particular nation’s exports to the country to the US.

Many countries, particularly in Europe, have levied taxes on the sales revenue of digital service providers, including Alphabet’s Google, Meta’s Facebook, Apple and Amazon. The issue has been a longstanding trade irritant for multiple US administrations.

Canada removes Digital Tax

Trump abruptly called off   trade   talks   with Canada   last month over   Canada’s digital   services   tax, saying it was a “blatant attack.” He pledged to set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods within the next week, which threatened to push US-Canada   relations back into chaos  after  a period of relative calm.

The Canadian government scrapped its digital services tax on the US hours before it was set to go into effect, following which trade talks between the two countries continued.

Ottawa introduced the digital service tax in 2020 on big US-based tech companies like Meta, Amazon, Google parent Alphabet, Uber and Airbnb. The levy was designed to charge American companies from the revenues they generated from Canadians.

The Digital Services Tax Act (DSTA) officially came into effect last year, with Canada imposing a 3 per cent tax on digital service revenues generated from Canadian users, even if companies have no physical presence in the country.