President Trump has been right to stand up against censorious and sinophilic technology conglomerates. But his administration seems wrongly keen on punishing us ordinary folks as part of his war to protect American Big Tech.
In retaliation to France’s 3% digital services tax, the Trump administration is poised to impose tariffs of up to 100% on French wine, handbags, and cheeses.
To punish France, Trump may just double the price of your evening Bordeaux. We started a revolution over much less.
Trump’s trade war has confounded economists for many reasons, none more than its bevy of contradictions. Trump has correctly pushed the Overton window on China’s regime to make the planet come to terms with the nation’s undeniable threat to the Western world. Yet he continues to isolate and aggravate our democratic allies when that’s the last thing he should be doing. In this case, Trump isn’t just punishing a crucial ally in our struggle against China. He’s doing so to protect the multinational tech conglomerates that, in every other context, he loathes more than almost anything.
The French digital services tax, however ill-advised it is in principle, will only apply to some 30 tech giants. Those include Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple. Why would Trump want to punish his own people to protect companies he despises?
So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post. Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2019
Check out what @Google is up to for the 2020 election! #KAG2020 pic.twitter.com/roM2WNmUSP
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2019
Facebook, Google and Twitter, not to mention the Corrupt Media, are sooo on the side of the Radical Left Democrats. But fear not, we will win anyway, just like we did before! #MAGA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2019
To Tim: The Button on the IPhone was FAR better than the Swipe!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2019
It’s easy to write off the woes of the French billionaires who own Balenciaga and Veuve Cliquot, but Trump’s tariffs could decimate our $70 billion wine industry. Imports comprise one-third of our domestic market, which employs nearly a million Americans directly and over 1.7 million indirectly. Anywhere between 10,000 and 17,000 Americans could lose their jobs if Trump actually did tariff French wine at 100%, and even more would lose their jobs across the food services and luxury goods industries.
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, have until midnight to give the federal government a piece of our minds. Head over to regulations.gov to stick it to a big government that insists on taxing and surveilling you while depriving you of a reasonably priced wheel of Camembert at the same time. Give us Dior, or give us death!
