President Trump warned that France is liable to a contemporary commerce struggle with America — declaring in an unique interview with The Put up that except Paris axes its digital tax on American tech giants, the US will “don’t have any selection” however to slap 100% tariffs on French wines.
Trump mentioned he gave the blunt warning on to outgoing French President Emmanuel Macron, demanding he ditch the three% tech levy or face devastating duties within the American market, which accounts for a fifth of the French wine business’s world gross sales — value greater than $2 billion yearly.
“I requested him to not cost American corporations, and in the event that they do, I’ve no selection however to cost a 100% tariff on all champagnes and all wines popping out of France,” Trump advised The Put up. “All [Macron] has to do is do away with the gross sales tax, and he wouldn’t have that type of stress.”
The ultimatum units the stage for a bitter showdown at Monday’s G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, the annual assembly of seven of the world’s wealthiest democracies to set the foundations on world commerce, safety, and financial coverage that helps transfer markets.
His feedback additionally shatter claims made final week by Macron’s workplace, the Élysée Palace, that the 2 nations had quietly settled their long-running spat over taxing Silicon Valley.
A senior supply near the French president advised reporters final week that the problem was “now not up for debate” amongst G7 international locations — an account a US official instantly dismissed as “not correct.”
France’s digital companies tax, generally often known as the GAFAM tax, has been on the books since 2019. It imposes a sweeping 3% levy on the native income generated by the likes of Google dad or mum Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Apple.
As a result of the coverage targets gross income moderately than income, it hits US tech titans the toughest, raking in roughly $700 million final yr alone in line with the French finance ministry.
The stress intensified in October when France’s deeply divided Nationwide Meeting, the nation’s reply to the Home of Representatives, voted 296-58 to double the tax to six% and slender the brink to completely goal the most important world gamers. The transfer was ultimately vetoed by ministers.
Lawmakers had even initially floated a punitive 15% hike earlier than scaling it again underneath business stress. Then-Financial system Minister Roland Lescure warned on the time {that a} “disproportionate” tax would invite “disproportionate” American reprisals.
That reprisal is now taking form. Trump’s newest risk revives the punishing 100% tariff stage first proposed by the US Commerce Consultant throughout a 2019 investigation into the French tax.
Whereas Macron has beforehand been dubbed a “Trump whisperer” able to slicing offers with the billionaire actual property mogul — together with an eleventh-hour truce on the 2019 G7 in Biarritz — the Trump administration is now taking a tougher line globally.
Other than this yr’s hosts France and america, the opposite G7 international locations Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK.
When approached for remark, White Home spokesman Kush Desai pointed The Put up to a presidential memo from February 2025 stating that American companies would now not “prop up failed international economies by extortive fines and taxes.”
The memo tasked US Commerce Consultant Jamieson Greer and the Treasury Division with deciding whether or not to reopen a proper probe into the French levy. Neither division responded to requests for remark.
France’s aggressive tax hike isolates it from a number of key allies who’ve bowed to Washington’s stress. Canada shelved its personal digital tax in 2025 after the US broke off commerce talks, and Italy is reportedly weighing a repeal of its levy.
Britain, nevertheless, has retained its digital companies tax underneath its present commerce preparations with America.
The G7 (Group of Seven) summit runs till Wednesday within the French lakeside city of Evian.
The membership of the world’s seven largest so-called “superior” economies, which dominate world commerce and the worldwide monetary system, consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and america.
Russia joined in 1998, creating the G8, however was excluded after it seized Crimea. China has by no means been a member, regardless of its massive economic system and having the world’s second-largest inhabitants
