Donald Trump has a ‘100% warning’ for French President Emmanuel Macron: Scrap tax for Google, Apple, and other American tech companies or I have no choice but to…
Donald Trump has handed France a ultimatum days before the two countries share a table at the G7: kill the digital tax on American tech firms, or watch French wine and champagne get hit with a 100% tariff in the US market. He delivered the warning in an exclusive interview with the New York Post, framing it as a corner he’s been backed into rather than a choice. “I asked him not to charge American companies, and if they do, I have no choice but to charge a 100% tariff on all champagnes and all wines coming out of France,” Trump said, adding that Macron could lift the pressure simply by dropping what he called the “sales tax.”The timing is pointed. Trump issued the warning hours before he and Emmanuel Macron were due to meet at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, on the shores of Lake Geneva. And it directly contradicts what Macron’s office floated last week—that the long-running tax spat between Washington and Paris had quietly been settled. A senior French source had called the issue “no longer up for debate,” an account a US official immediately dismissed as not accurate.
What France’s digital tax actually does
At the center of the fight is France’s 3% levy, introduced in 2019 and commonly known as the GAFAM tax, which targets gross revenue earned within the country by tech giants like Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Apple. Because it taxes revenue rather than profit, it lands hardest on US firms—many of which book slim local margins—pulling in roughly $700 million last year according to the French finance ministry.The pressure has only grown since: in October, France’s National Assembly voted 296-58 to double the rate to 6% and narrow it to hit only the largest global players, though ministers ultimately vetoed the move over fears of exactly this kind of American retaliation. Lawmakers had even floated a punitive 15% rate before scaling back under industry pushback. The 100% figure isn’t plucked from nowhere either—it revives a tariff level the US Trade Representative first proposed during a 2019 investigation into the same tax, a fight Macron and Trump defused with an eleventh-hour truce back then.
Why wine is caught in the crossfire
The US is the single biggest buyer of French wines and spirits, accounting for about 21% of total exports, so the threat strikes at a real nerve. Per Reuters, French exporters group FEVS called the move bad news for an export-heavy industry caught in a dispute beyond its control, urging “responsible behaviour” from both sides.Macron, for his part, isn’t blinking. He told French broadcaster TF1 that tariffs help no one, “especially tariffs between G7 countries,” and flatly rejected the idea of caving: “No, because that is not how it works.” French wine exports to the US already fell sharply last year and carry a 15% tariff—doubling that to 100% would all but shut them out.
