00:00The U.S. threatening to retaliate against EU companies over a digital tax. What can you tell
00:04us? Right. So the top U.S. trade negotiator, Jameson Greer, threatening retaliation against
00:09the European Union in response to the bloc's efforts to regulate American tech companies.
00:14And these are regulations governing digital commerce. And they've hit some of the biggest
00:18U.S. tech giants. We're talking about Amazon, Meta, Google companies like this. Now, if we
00:24have his post in his post, the USTR is writing that, quote, if the EU and EU member states
00:29insist on continuing to restrict, limit and deter the competitiveness of U.S. service
00:34providers through what he's calling discriminatory means, the U.S. will have no choice but to
00:39begin to use every tool at its disposal. Now, he goes on to talk about this idea that we
00:44could see fees or restrictions. You'll recall back in February, actually, President Trump
00:49had issued this memorandum that instructed the USTR to look into what they are calling
00:54unfair trade practices related to digital services taxes. In fact, they renewed a Section 301
01:00investigation into them. And DSTs have really been at the center of many tariff negotiations,
01:07particularly with the EU, though, when that agreement was reached to lower tariffs on the
01:12trading block down to 15 percent. We didn't really see much progress when it came to digital
01:17trade. So it does appear that the U.S. is now re-upping its threats. It wants to see this
01:21ultimately addressed. And this could really heighten tensions between the U.S. and the
01:27EU, because as we've been covering right now, many of these countries are working together
01:31to try to push forward what could be a fragile proposal to end the war in Ukraine.
01:36Then again, after that defense strategy review that we saw come out of the White House last
01:40week, Tyler, this is coming against the backdrop of deteriorating relations with Europe.
01:44Right. And we should say that we did have the EU's trade chief on Bloomberg Television
01:48yesterday who actually defended the bloc's policies when it does come to digital trade.
01:52He told us, quote, that the EU will protect our tech sovereignty. So really expect this
01:58to keep coming up because it doesn't really seem like either side is budging. We're going
02:02to, of course, watch what the U.S. does when it comes to EU-based service providers, potential
02:08companies being named Accenture, Spotify, these other private sector companies that the U.S.
02:12has alleged has had unfettered market access to the U.S. for the past few years. And the
02:18U.S. is arguing they want to see that for our big tech companies.
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