Donald Trump threatened to tax French wine and condemned Emmanuel Macron’s “foolishness” over a plan to target global technology companies.
Mr Macron, the French president, signed a law this week under which US tech giants like Amazon, Google and Facebook would have to pay a three per cent tax on their French revenue.
The law covers companies that have global revenue of over 750 million euros, and digital sales of over 25 million euros in France.
Many of the two dozen companies affected by the “digital tax” are American.
Mr Trump wrote on Twitter: “France just put a digital tax on our great American technology companies. If anybody taxes them, it should be their home Country, the USA.
“We will announce a substantial reciprocal action on Macron’s foolishness shortly.”
He added: “I’ve always said American wine is better than French wine!”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1154791664625606657
It is not the first time Mr Trump, who has been teetotal all his life, has indicated potential tariffs on French wine.
Last month, he said: “France charges us a lot for the wine. So the wineries, the California guys, they come to me and say ‘Sir, we’re paying a lot of money to put our product into France, and you’re letting these French wines, which are great wines, but we have great wines too – you’re allowing it to come in for nothing. It’s not fair.'”
The stand-off with Mr Macron marks another step in the growing froidure between Mr Trump and Mr Macron. Last month it emerged that a “friendship tree” the two leaders planted in the White House garden had died.
