President Donald Trump said he will impose tariffs on Britain if Prime Minister Keir Starmer does not drop the digital services tax, The Telegraph reported on Friday, citing an interview with the president.
Trump told The Telegraph he would “impose a big tariff on the UK” if it did not drop the tax, which is seen as unfairly targeting US technology companies.
The UK introduced a 2% digital services tax in 2020, a move criticized by Trump and his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.
The DST targets companies like Apple, Alphabet’s Google, and Meta.
“I don’t like it when they target American companies, because you’re basically talking about our great American companies… and the best companies in the world,” Trump said.
He added: “We’ve been looking at it, and we could very easily counter that by just putting a big tariff on the UK. So they better be careful. If they don’t drop the tax, we’ll probably put a big tariff on the UK.”
Trump’s statements come before British King Charles’s visit to the United States next week.