Donald Trump announced on Monday that countries introducing taxes and digital regulations can number on both additional duties and restrictions on access to American technologies. He stressed that as president of the United States, he was not going to look passively attacks to the largest technology companies in the United States.
The president pointed out that solutions specified as digital taxation and rules on online services and markets are aimed at harm or discriminate against American technology. He besides added that these regulations completely ignore the largest Chinese technology companiesWhat he called scandal.
Trump warned that if countries keep specified solutions, then the US will respond decisively – through advanced duties on their exports and restrictions on access to American technologies and chips. He besides stressed that the United States and American technology companies cannot be treated as global treasury.
Show respect for America and our amazing technology companies or face the consequences! – Trump summed up.
EU responds
Commenting on Donald Trump's threats, European Commission spokesperson Paul Pinho pointed out that the rules on the digital marketplace in the EU were not part of trade negotiations with the US. She stressed that the Union and its associate States have the full right to form economical regulation in their territory on the basis of their own democratic values and that this subject was not included in the fresh agreement with Washington.
W Europe has 2 basic legal acts governing the operations of major digital platforms – the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The first imposes on large web services and search engines obligations related, among others, to the moderation of content and transparency of algorithms. The second is intended to counter the monopolistic position of technological giants and strengthen competition on the market.
The European Commission's Digital Technology spokesperson, Thomas Regnier, pointed out that EU regulations are not aimed at US technology companies. He explained that DSA rules apply to all platforms and companies operating in the EU, regardless of their owner, country of origin or place of registration. He stressed that the last 3 decisions taken by the EC under the DSA afraid AliExpress, Temu and TikToka, or platforms originating in China.
Role of DSA and DMA
The Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) are 2 key EU regulations adopted in 2022, which are jointly designed to organise the functioning of the digital space. The DSA focuses on user safety and transparency of platform activities – it obliges the largest websites to remove illegal content more effectively, restricts the ability to direct advertising to children, requires disclosure of algorithms and requires reporting of risks associated with, among others, disinformation. In turn, DMA aims to strengthen competitiveness by reducing the dominance of so-called. access guards, i.e. the largest technology companies specified as Google, Apple or Meta. It prohibits them from favouring their own services, requires interoperability of communicators, greater freedom of choice for applications and access to business data.
