US President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Friday to defend American companies and technology from “overseas extortion”, directly attacking EU tech regulations like the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act with threats of tariff retaliation.Â
The US administration would consider tariffs to combat digital services taxes (DSTs), fines, practices, and policies that foreign governments levy on American companies, the White House said on Friday.
Trump’s White House contends that DSTs allowed foreign governments to collect taxes from US companies “simply because they operate in foreign markets”.
The memo also orders a review of EU and United Kingdom policies that might push US tech companies to develop or use products that “undermine free speech or foster censorship”, and warns that major EU tech regulations like the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA) that dictate how US companies interact with consumers in the EU “will face scrutiny from the Administration”, according to the White House.
Foreign governments have taxed the success of US companies while having “failed to cultivate the economic success of their own”, the Trump administration claimed, and US tech “dominance is driven by cutting-edge American tech companies”.
Executives at US Big Tech companies have launched a crusade against EU tech regulation since Trump took power.
Last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called on the US to defend big tech companies from censorship by EU regulations, while Meta’s chief lobbyist, Joel Kaplan, doubled down on the offensive by labelling regulations as ”tariffs” in an event. Billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk, the owner of X, has been regularly attacking EU tech regulations in posts on his platform.
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