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Donald Trump is considering tariffs on countries that levy digital services taxes against American companies and tightening rules on Chinese investment in the US as he widens the scope of his global trade war.
The president signed a memo on Friday ordering the US trade representative to look into reopening investigations begun during his first term into digital services taxes imposed by a host of EU countries as well as the UK and Turkey. It also assesses potential new probes into other countries including Canada.
“My administration will not allow American companies and workers and American economic and national security interests to be compromised by one-sided, anti-competitive policies and practices of foreign governments,” the president wrote in the memo.
Since retaking office Trump has sought to reshape the country’s trading relationships with the world, threatening and executing a range of tariffs against various countries and sectors.
He had already signalled digital services taxes would be in his sights as he looks to unshackle the nation’s Big Tech groups operating abroad and overhaul the global tax regime.
Under the memo, Washington will look into taxes imposed by foreign governments on US companies and also any regulations or policies that “inhibit the growth” or “jeopardise [the] intellectual property” of American corporations operating abroad.
The memo mentions digital service taxes in France and the UK, whose leaders are set to visit Washington for talks with the president in the coming days.
“What they’re doing to us in other countries is terrible with digital,” Trump said on Friday ahead of the signing.
The president also signed a memorandum aimed at boosting foreign investment into the country while protecting national security from China and other adversaries. It said the administration would create a “fast-track” process to enable investment from US allies and partners.
The memo added that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (Cfius), which vets inward-bound transactions for security risks, would be used to “restrict Chinese investments in strategic US sectors like technology, critical infrastructure, healthcare, agriculture, energy, raw materials, and others”.
Former president Joe Biden ordered Cfius to take a tougher approach on China in a range of similar sectors, including technology.
The White House said it would protect farmland and real estate near sensitive military facilities and would strengthen Cfius’s authority over “greenfield” investments, where companies build or expand new facilities and operations in a foreign country.
It said the administration would consider new or expanded restrictions on American outbound investment to China in sensitive technologies, including chips, artificial intelligence, quantum and biotechnology, to prevent capital from being used to support China’s “military-civil fusion” strategy, which forces Chinese companies to share technology with the People’s Liberation Army.
“We will also adopt new rules to stop US companies from pouring investments into China, and to stop China from buying up America, allowing all of those investments that clearly serve American interests,” Trump said in a statement.
Additional reporting by Steff Chávez in Washington
