Macron says France will not bend to US on digital tax
· Michael West
President Emmanuel Macron says France will not bow to pressure from US President Donald Trump and scrap its digital tax on US tech giants, hours before the two met at a summit.
Before setting off for the G7 leaders summit, which Macron is hosting on the shores of Lake Geneva, Trump warned that the US would “have no choice” but to apply 100 per cent tariffs on French wine unless officials in Paris eliminated their digital tax.
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Trump told the New York Post he had delivered the warning directly to Macron, demanding he remove the 3 per cent tax on US tech giants or face duties in the US market.
“All (Macron) has to do is get rid of the sales tax, and he wouldn’t have that kind of pressure,” Trump was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the New York Post article.
Macron told French television channel TF1 that “tariffs don’t do anyone any good, especially tariffs between G7 countries”.
Asked if he would yield to the tariff threats, he responded: “No, because that is not how it works.”
France has applied a 3 per cent levy since 2019 on revenue from digital services earned by companies with revenues of more than 25 million euro ($A41 million) in the country and 750 million euro worldwide.
French wine and spirits exporters said the latest US threat was bad news for an export-dependent industry caught in a dispute beyond its control and urged responsible action.
Trump has threatened a 200 per cent tariff on wine and other alcoholic beverages imported from France and the European Union before, including in January this year and last year in March.
For Macron the G7 summit is a diplomatic capstone for his second and final term in office, which ends next year.
Alcohol is among the EU’s top exports to the US, worth about 9 billion euro in 2024, according to Eurostat data, with products like Remy Martin cognac and champagne required to be produced in specific European regions.
Wines and spirits exported to the US from the EU currently face a 15 per cent tariff, a rate the French have been lobbying to cut to zero since Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agreed a US-EU trade deal in Scotland last northern hemisphere summer.