US plans to impose retaliatory tariffs on six countries

According to foreign media reports, U.S. trade representative Dai Qi recently said that she will maintain the threat that the United States may impose tariffs on Austria, the United Kingdom, India, Italy, Spain and Turkey in retaliation for their digital service taxes. The Indian media revealed that the United States may impose retaliatory tariffs of up to 25% on Indian products.

According to Reuters, Dai Qi said in a statement that the United States is still committed to reaching an international consensus on international tax issues through the organization for economic cooperation and development (OECD), but until such a consensus is reached, the United States will maintain the options after the "301 investigation", including imposing tariffs when necessary.

The statement announced that according to the investigation launched by the trump administration on digital service taxes in several countries, the Biden administration's office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) will promote possible tariff implementation actions, including submitting announcements and collecting public opinions. The United States believes that the digital service tax in these countries is mainly aimed at us network companies and e-commerce platforms. These digital service taxes are levied on the domestic revenue of us digital service companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon.

Dai Qi also pointed out in the statement that USTR has stopped the "301 investigation" on Brazil, Czech Republic, EU and Indonesia because these regions have not adopted or implemented the previously considered digital service tax. But the statement threatened that the USTR might launch a new tariff investigation if the digital services tax is still applied in these regions.

According to the report, although US President Biden decided to let the United States rejoin the international negotiations sponsored by the organization for economic cooperation and development (OECD) and seek to reach a global agreement on digital service tax, USTR still made the tough decision. This is one of Dai Qi's first negotiation strategies since he took over the post of trade representative. At the appointment hearing in February, Dai Qi declared that tariffs are the "legitimate tool" of US trade policy.

The Hindu business line revealed on March 29 that the United States has proposed to impose retaliatory tariffs of up to 25% on shrimp, fragrant rice, gold and silver products and other Indian products. The initial list of target products also included bamboo products, cigarette paper, cultured pearls, gems, lingerie, jewelry and wooden furniture in India. According to USTR, it is preliminarily estimated that the value of digital services tax paid by us digital service enterprises to India is as high as about US $55 million per year, and retaliatory tariffs may also reach this amount.

Source: Linyi Council for the promotion of international trade