US slaps French goods with 25% added duties, but delays effective date

Late on Friday, the Trump Administration had issued a statement saying that the United States would incline an additional 25 per cent tariff on French-borne consumer goods such as cosmetics, handbags alongside other imports, worth of roughly $1.3 billion as a part of its response to French digital tax on internet service providers which mostly included US-based tech Goliaths.

Nonetheless, the announcement had also added that an implementation of the move would be delayed as long as 180 days in order to deliver an opportunistic window to resolve the issue through in-person meets and discussions in the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development).

In point of fact, the latest move from the Trump Administration announced by the office of USTR (United State Trade Representative) comes over the heels of an earlier section 301 probe, which ruled earlier this year that the French digital taxation rule could be subject to discrimination against a number of US tech conglomerates such as Google, Apple Inc and Facebook Inc, while the decision had also mirrored a stubborn stance from France regarding its 3 per cent taxation on digital service providers.

US set off similar Section 301 probe on 10 other countries which adopted digital taxes

Apart from the section 301 probe on French digital tax aimed at generating a greater revenue from the tech giants which usually profit enormously from the local market, but contribute very little to the public coffers, the United States had also initiated similar probe on ten countries including India, UK and Turkey, all of which had adopted digital taxations on US-based tech conglomerates.

Nonetheless, on last December, the USTR Robert Lighthizer had unveiled a list of $1.3 billion worth of French imports for the first time, which would be subject to 25 per cent added levies, unless the French Government sways away from its planned digital taxation on the US-based tech titans.

Source: Financial World