Finance & economics | Digital services tax

France is giving unilateralism a go

The Trump administration is preparing to hit back

|WASHINGTON, DC

“DON’T TAX you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.” Historically, this rhyme has poked fun at the tax-shy American public. Today it reflects complaints against the French government, which on July 25th introduced a tax on digital services. American companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google are protesting that they are being treated like the fellow behind the tree. President Donald Trump is itching to hit back. Unilateralism is a language he can understand.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Trading blows”

What are companies for?

From the August 24th 2019 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Finance & economics

Can anything spark Europe’s economy back to life?

Mario Draghi, the continent’s unofficial chief technocrat, has a plan

Has social media broken the stockmarket?

That is the contention of Cliff Asness, one of the great quant investors


American office delinquencies are shooting up

How worried should investors be?


China is suffering from a crisis of confidence

Can anything perk up its economy?

America has a huge deficit. Which candidate would make it worse?

Enough policies have been proposed to make a call

Why Oasis fans should welcome price-gouging

There are worse things in life than paying a fair price