Duties 2, Revenge: US Threatens EU Over Digital Taxes
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The US Trade Representative has warned that the US will utilize “every tool” at its disposal if the European Union does not cease “lawsuits, taxes, fines and directives against US service providers.” The primary target of this escalating tension? The digital services taxes implemented by several EU nations. We are, it seems, entering a new era of “duties 2, revenge.”
The US Threatens Europe with Trade War: A sign of Trump’s Weakness?
Year-ends should usually be occasions for taking stock, not for relaunching. This time, however, it applies to both because, in the tension over the war, the latest threats with which the White House is honoring us have gone unnoticed in Europe.I’m not new. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Tuesday published a note warning that the United States will use “every tool at its disposal” if the European Union and its governments do not stop with “discriminatory and harassing lawsuits,taxes,fines and directives against US service providers”. The threats,we will see,are precise and also fully concern Italy.
All the signs converge in one direction: letting Donald Trump win on the issue of tariffs on goods has not quelled him; rather it fuels his aggression. Where is the balance then in all this? It is provisional, but it is there: if the passivity and uncertainty of the European Union, it is the reality that it is trying to show to Trump the failure of its trade policy; with it, his entire economic policy and, in perspective, his system of power reveal cracks.
Trump appears so strong to us that we don’t really see his weakness. But it is indeed from this that Europe must start again in 2026.
Greer’s lunge
In this climate, the president of the United States has found the culprit: us. Trade Representative Greer unleashed an attack that sounds like the first move of a new campaign.
But the underlying sentiment is far more complex. It’s not simply about economic indicators; it’s about a pervasive sense of exclusion from the more tangible aspects of the American dream (home, health), a lack of economic security, and glaring injustice regarding prospect – factors that make Americans bleaker than pure growth or employment data explains.
Precisely all segments of the electorate – by age, sex, race or educational qualification – they disapprove mostly his work, especially on economic dossiers (inflation, taxes, work); the net share between positive and negative opinions of the president after almost a year turn to disapproval much more than was true for Joe Biden after the same period and, for much of the time, more than Trump himself in his first term.
Ursula’s words
In short,five months after the questionable handshake with Ursula von der Leyen on the Turnberry golf course in Scotland,we are already at “duties 2,revenge”. Maybe never have Ursula von der Leyen’s words stood the test of time as badly as those pronounced at the end of last July alongside Trump: “We have an agreement, a huge agreement that will bring stability and certainty to our businesses.” Tell that to those currently threatened with new duties or a doubling of taxes by presidential edict.
And it won’t just be a problem for France, as this time too Trump has it out for many countries (including Italy). Above all, the same taxes on digital services that already cost Paris a first wave of duties in 2020 are under accusation. apply of various types.
The new negotiation
Making proclamations at me would be a little too easy, because I wouldn’t have to answer for the consequences. it makes more sense to see how tariff policy is going so far for the White House. It, according to Trump, sought improvements for the United States in foreign trade balances, in the creation of manufacturing jobs and in increasing tax revenues, to cover the latest package of tax cuts. And on all three of these fronts, Trump, with varying degrees of intensity, is failing.
Not only is the mood of Americans about their economy bad. America’s deficit in goods trade with the rest of the world in the first nine months of 2025, at nearly $1 trillion, is also $120 billion above at the levels of Biden’s last year. Rather of improving, it got worse. The very last few months indicate that in the future it could start to reduce,but it is indeed already clear that it will not be by much as the chosen instrument is wrong: the problem in the United States is the lack of savings and excess consumption,not open borders. As for the creation of jobs in industry through tariffs, the graph below speaks clearly: since April, manufacturing employment in America has started to decline, following a trend that has been underway for years. It was predictable. As Penelope Naas of the German Marshall Fund in Washington explains, Trump’s tariffs also hit components and investment goods and thus make industrial production in America more expensive. Not more convenient. «For every 10 thousand jobs we create in steel mills thanks to tariffs – says Naas -,we lose 175-200 thousand in manufacturing activities based on steel itself».
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