Opinion
Tax instead of customs. Now. Finally.
Donald Trump wants new US tariffs. But how should the Europeans react to it? Eye and eye? Or negotiate? Our author suggests a combination of both.
However you came across this article: one or more US companies have most likely made you a profit. Apple, Amazon, Microsoft (LinkedIn, Chatgpt), Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), Alphabet (Google, YouTube), with Elon Musks X-Group. They dominate large parts of the digital infrastructure. Worldwide. They also influence the spread of star-Articles. As from almost all articles, videos, podcasts that appear online. Your profit amount 2024: a good $ 400 billion. Last paid tax rate for their profits in the European Union: 9.5 percent. No joke.
The customs policy of US President Donald Trump is also not a joke. 20 percent surcharge for everything from the European Union. Because of an alleged trade deficit with the USA. This consists for goods and industrial goods. However, if one calculates the services imported by the EU of the US digital groups mentioned, the balance sheet is almost balanced with the United States.
Reaction to Donald Trump: Taxes should play a role in the trade conflict
It shows: Trump and his libertarian-nationalist whisperer do not wage a trade war. At most, a high-risk bet on the re-industrialization of the United States. The new US government is a completely different war: against democratically legitimized statehood, against regular international order and their institutions, against independent judiciary, against democratic freedom of freedom, against freedom of expression and media. Last but not least, the money for this war comes from a handful of US billionaires, large owners of those companies that dominate what we generally call “Internet”. All of our use, including mine, gives the corporations their gigantic profits. And an enormous power.
So how do you react to Trump’s tariffs? Some of the EU are now calling for a maximum of hard counter -reaction. Eye over an eye. Others advise de -escalation. A combination of both would be smart. One can talk about the economic nonsense of tariffs and against tariffs. However, what should no longer be negotiable from now on is an appropriate taxation of the US tech companies in the European Union. A digital tax could rinse more than 37 billion euros into the Brussels cash register, our cash register. That would be 20 percent more money. Every year. This has been talked about for years. Now time has come to act.
Oh yes, about the amount of the digital tax rate … you could of course talk.
Source: Stern
