LAST UPDATE | 11 Apr

BRUSSELS COULD HIT US Big Tech with taxes if negotiations fail to end Donald Trump’s tariff war against the EU, the bloc’s chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a Financial Times interview yesterday.

Since the US president unleashed tariffs targeting steel and aluminium, cars, and finally a majority of imports from the European Union, the bloc has insisted it seeks a mutually beneficial agreement with Washington.

But now in her strongest comments yet, von der Leyen indicated that she was ready to step up her threats of retaliation and target American services if negotiations fall short.

“There’s a wide range of countermeasures ,” she said, if talks yielded no result.

“An example is you could put a levy on the advertising revenues of digital services” applying across the bloc, said von der Leyen, who raised the use of a new trade weapon called the anti-coercion instrument, according to the FT.

Dubbed a “bazooka”, the weapon has never been used but empowers the EU to target services and could limit American companies’ access to public procurement contracts in Europe.

Among the grievances fueling its tariff campaign against Europe, the US administration has complained about so-called non-tariff barriers that it argues unfairly hamper American exports.

In particular officials have taken umbrage at the bloc’s value-added taxes (VAT) and stringent rules on tech, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act, which regulate tech competition and content moderation online respectively.

The tech laws were “untouchable”, von der Leyen told the newspaper, and said the EU would not be open to negotiate on VAT, which applies to both domestic and imported goods.

While the interview laid down a series of red lines, von der Leyen has sent strong signals she wants the talks to be successful.

She announced earlier on Thursday that the bloc would put planned tariffs on US goods on hold “to give negotiations a chance” after Trump’s U-turn on massive new duties, despite the fact that his previous levies on metals and cars remain in force, as does a baseline 10 percent tariff on all goods.

Trump announced on Wednesday that the new tariffs on dozens of countries confirmed last week, including the EU, were being paused for 90-days. 

French President Emmanuel Macron said today that the it was a “fragile pause”, and Europe must therefore “mobilise all available levers to protect itself”.

The EU Trade Commissioner is to travel to Washington DC on Monday to meet with members of Trump’s administration.

Options not actions

Tánaiste Simon Harris said today that he’d heard of the comments and that there is “important context” to them.

“I think what President von der Leyen was doing was rightly outlining all of the various tools and options that are available to the European Union and the European Commission. I think that’s very different from utilising all of them,” he said.

However, he added that he is “confident” from the engagement he’s having with the Commission that it the approach across the bloc is “de-escalation”.

“I think we need to continue to stay calm and measured in our response. In fairness to the European response, I think people can only be judged on their actions.

He said Europe “responded proportionally” to Trump’s “provocations”.

“Europe actually didn’t respond in kind of anger or seek to escalate. It analysed. It worked together. It engaged across member states and has responded proportionally.”

Harris will be at the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on Monday, which he says will be another opportunity to engage with European officials, which he says has been productive so far.

“What you don’t want to do is anything escalatory, and what you don’t want to do is have any disunity across Europe,” he said.

“From an Irish perspective, purely, we’ve seen that by engaging with the European Union, we’ve actually been able to ensure things like dairy and whiskey and the drinks industries’ concerns were addressed in relation to the EU’s initial response.”

Not Ireland’s approach

The Taoiseach previously said he doesn’t favour a digital service tax because “there’s no point making things worse”.

Micheál Martin told reporters: “This has to be a considered response, a measured response – one that is clearly calculated and calibrated not to bring more damage on the European economy and European citizens.”

He stressed the need for a “collective response” from the EU but added that, while “solidarity” was important, the government would make the case for Ireland’s own interests. 

“There has to be solidarity, but we have made our views known to the EU at a Commission level,” added Martin.

“Ireland will not be shy in terms of our interests, but also our strategy”.

With reporting by – © AFP2025