President Donald Trump pondered Friday imposing tariffs on French products, including wine, in retaliation for the country’s tax on large American technology companies. The President told reporters that the tariffs could come before the G7 summit in August.
“France put on a tax on our companies … wrong thing to do. They should not have done that,” Trump said, referring to a 3% tax on revenue made in France by large American technology companies, recently approved by the French Parliament that is to take effect from January 2020.
“I’ve always liked American wines better than French wines. Even though I don’t drink wine. I just like the way they look, OK? American wines are great, and they didn’t do the right thing when they start taxing our companies. We tax our companies, they don’t tax our companies,” Trump continued.
He nonetheless noted that his relationship with French President Emmanuel Macron remained good, stressing that he had just spoken with him. “But they shouldn’t have done this. They’re used to taking advantage of the United States, but not with me as president,” Trump said.
“It might be a wine, it might be on something else. We’ll be announcing that fairly soon,” Trump continued.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative announced an investigation earlier this month, saying that the French tax potentially represents discrimination against American companies. President Trump made a similar statement last month, maintaining that “France charges us a lot for the wine,” calling it “not fair.”
The trade representative’s office has likewise called for new tariffs on the European Union worth about $4 billion, which would include 89 products such as meat, cheese, pasta, coffee and whiskey. They could be added to a list of EU exports worth $21 billion that the trade office said in April would be subject to tariffs.
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