U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on the UK if Prime Minister Keir Starmer does not scrap the country’s Digital Services Tax (DST).
Trump told The Telegraph he would “put a big tariff on the UK” unless the tax is dropped. The levy is widely seen as unfairly targeting American tech giants. The UK Treasury reported last year that it had collected millions of pounds from the tax.
Connor Stringer for The Telegraph:
Mr. Trump said, “We’ve been looking at it, and we can meet that very easily by just putting a big tariff on the UK. So they better be careful. If they don’t drop the tax, we’ll probably put a big tariff on the UK.”
The US president views the tax as unfairly targeting American tech companies such as Apple, Google and Meta by placing a 2pc charge on revenue on social media, search engines and online marketplaces…
The tax also applies to the UK revenues of large search engines, online marketplaces and social networks and has become increasingly important to the Exchequer amid the growth of big tech companies. Official forecasts said it could raise £1.4bn a year by 2030, up from £380m when first introduced four years ago… [T]he UK DST appears to remain the largest in the world.
Asked what kind of tariff Britain can expect, Mr Trump said: “More than what they’re getting.”
It is the latest in an ongoing trade row with the White House. Tensions over Downing Street’s threat to block X prompted the US to pull out of talks with the UK over a deal for closer technological cooperation.
MacDailyNews Take: What is it with Brits and taxes? 250 years after getting their asses kicked by freedom-loving Americans, they’re still hooked on the same failed big-government, high-tax addiction.
It never ends with the Brits (and their EU cousins): a deep-seated cultural and political addiction to high taxes, big government, and the welfare state — especially when they can leech off wildly successful, innovative American tech companies that actually create value the world wants.
Waning nations like the United Kingdom under feckless Starmer and the socialist-leaning collective in the bloated European Union are increasingly pathetic and desperate. These weak, fading nations — bloated with bureaucracy, strangled by regulation, and addicted to handouts — have nothing left but to latch onto America’s dynamic tech sector like parasites. They contribute little in return except endless complaints, barriers to entry, and demands for “more, more, more!”
President Trump is right to push back hard. American innovation shouldn’t be penalized to prop up failing welfare-state models overseas. If the UK and EU refuse to drop these leech-like taxes, punishing tariffs are a perfectly appropriate response.
Time for these self-sabotaged, has-been economies to innovate or evaporate — not endlessly suckle at the teat of U.S. tech excellence.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
trump is slow. he can’t do tariffs
Just watch him, skippy..
yeah let’s watch big boy