Britain’s digital services tax, imposed on U.S. companies like Amazon, Google and Meta, will not be changed under the terms of the trade deal agreed between the two countries on Thursday, the British government said.
U.S. President Donald Trump has been strongly critical of digital services taxes, which have been introduced by around 20 countries, saying they were “designed to plunder American companies”.
Britain’s tax is levied at 2% of the revenue earned by big tech companies in the country.
“The Digital Services Tax remains unchanged as part of today’s deal,” the British government said in a statement.
“Instead the two nations have agreed to work on a digital trade deal that will strip back paperwork for British firms trying to export to the US – opening the UK up to a huge market that will put rocket boosters on the UK economy.”
