US presses Europe on taxes on big tech companies

Europe should “reconsider” its taxes on big tech companies if it wants to see lower US tariff rates on its steel and aluminium exports, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said.

His comments come as officials from the US and European Union are meeting in Brussels to discuss the status of the trade framework that the two sides agreed in July.

That deal set US tariff rates on European products at 15%, lower than had been threatened, in exchange for promises of European investment and changes that would allow in more American agricultural products.

But the two sides remain at odds over some parts of the deal.

European officials thought they had secured a 15% tariff on their metals exports as part of the deal reached over the summer, but the US is still charging at 50% duty – and has expanded the number of products subject to the levy.

Europe is also hoping to win carve-outs from tariffs for items such as wine, cheese and pasta, similar to the rollback the Trump administration recently granted for tropical fruit and coffee.

In a Bloomberg Television interview on Monday, Mr Lutnick offered little hint of how the US was leaning on those questions, saying only that the Trump administration was focusing on affordability.

He said the US wanted to see concessions over digital taxes for trade in metals to be included in the deal.

“They would like to have steel and aluminium as part of this package and we think it is very, very important that they understand our digital companies and they reconsider their digital regulations to be more inviting to our big companies,” he said.

The US has long maintained that taxes on digital services – which typically charge levies on revenue from streaming or digital advertising companies above a certain size – unfairly target American firms.

When Trump was re-elected last year, many tech firms hoped he would champion a rollback of the taxes, unlike the Biden administration, which had backed an internationally negotiated compromise approach.

European officials have previously said that the digital taxes were not up for negotiation. European Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said the EU had maintained that stance when the issue arose on Monday.

“This is not discriminatory. It is not aimed at American companies,” he added.