# COLUMN: Trump threatens Europe with a 100% tariff — the digital war that has been brewing for years

> On June 26, 2026, Donald Trump launched a trade threat of a brutality rarely seen in peacetime: 100% customs duties on all

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Column
- Published: 2026-07-01
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/chronique-trump-menace-l-europe-d-une-taxe-de-100-la-guerre-numerique-qui-couve-

## Introduction: June 26, 2026 and the digital trade bomb

### A 100% threat aimed at taxes on American tech giants

On **June 26, 2026**, **Donald Trump** launched a trade threat of a brutality rarely seen in peacetime: **100%** customs duties on all goods exported by any country applying a **digital services tax** (DST) targeting the revenues of American companies in Europe. One hundred percent. That is a war tariff. It is placing a gun to the head of every European trade partner that dares to tax American tech giants on its own territory.

This threat landed with precision. It is directed at **France**, the **United Kingdom**, **Spain**, **Italy**, and other European countries that have adopted or are considering adopting taxes on the revenues that **Google**, **Apple**, **Facebook**, **Amazon**, and **Microsoft** generate on their territory without paying proportional taxes there. It came at the worst possible moment: the **EU-U.S.** trade agreement, ratified just the day before on **June 25** with duties of **15%** on European exports, had barely been concluded. The ink was not yet dry and it was already under threat.

### A threat rooted in a long-standing digital tax conflict

The question of European digital taxes on American tech giants is not new. It has been the subject of negotiations and tensions since at least **2018**, when **France** adopted its own digital services tax — immediately dubbed the **"GAFA tax."** The **United States** under both the **Trump** and **Biden** administrations has consistently viewed these taxes as discriminatory toward American companies. The difference on **June 26, 2026** is the scale of the threat: no longer **25%**, no longer **50%** — a direct leap to **100%**.

This escalation is not trivial. It means that the negotiating space between **Europe** and the **United States** on digital taxation has drastically narrowed. Either **Europe** abandons its digital taxes, or it risks a total trade war that would hit all of its exporting sectors — French agri-food, German automotive, Italian textiles, Spanish aeronautics. This is unacceptable structural pressure on partners who define themselves as allies.

*I have been covering international trade policy for years, and the June 26, 2026 threat struck me as qualitatively new. This is no longer normal trade negotiation — it is coercion. When you threaten an ally with 100% tariffs on all its goods to punish it for exercising its fiscal sovereignty on its own territory, you have crossed a line that even previous administrations had not crossed so explicitly.*

## European digital taxes: what are we actually talking about?

### The fiscal logic of digital services taxes

**Digital services taxes** were designed to address a specific fiscal reality: large technology platforms generate considerable revenues in European countries without paying proportional tax there, thanks to tax structures that concentrate their profits in low-tax jurisdictions like **Ireland**, **Luxembourg**, or the **Netherlands**. A company like **Google** can generate **billions** in advertising revenue in **France** or **Germany** while declaring only a fraction of those revenues there.

Digital taxes seek to correct this asymmetry by levying a charge on revenues generated on national territory, regardless of where the company declares its profits. **France's digital services tax**, adopted in **2019**, applies to companies with global digital services revenues above **750 million euros** and more than **25 million euros** in France, at a rate of **3%** on local revenues. This is not a confiscatory tax — it is a reasonable attempt at equitable taxation in the global digital economy.

### Why Washington considers these taxes discriminatory

The American position has been clear for years: European digital taxes de facto target American companies, since it is the **GAFA** companies — **Google**, **Apple**, **Facebook/Meta**, **Amazon**, and **Microsoft** — that dominate the digital services sector globally. A tax that primarily hits major digital platforms is therefore, in practice, a tax primarily on American companies.

This argument has a certain logic — but it deliberately ignores the fact that these American companies have developed legal tax avoidance strategies that allow them to minimize their tax contribution in the countries where they generate their revenues. The solution to the digital tax problem should be a coordinated reform of international tax rules — precisely what the **OECD** attempted to accomplish with its agreement on the **minimum corporate tax rate**. But when this global solution stalls, countries seek unilateral solutions. And that is exactly what European digital taxes represent.

*Here is the fundamental irony I want to name: the very American companies that benefit from American public research, government contracts, and diplomatic protection have developed sophisticated tax structures to minimize their contribution wherever they operate. And now their government is defending them by threatening countries that are simply trying to make them pay their fair share. This is a perversion of what American economic power should be.*

## The June 25 EU-U.S. agreement: an already fragile foundation

### A laboriously negotiated trade deal, immediately put under pressure

The **EU-U.S.** trade agreement ratified on **June 25, 2026** — with duties reduced to **15%** on European exports — had been the product of months of laborious negotiation. The **European Union** had accepted significant concessions to obtain a reduction in American customs duties that had climbed to prohibitive levels during the early weeks of **Trump**'s second term. European negotiators had presented this agreement as a first step toward a stabilized transatlantic trade relationship.

Twenty-four hours later, the **100%** threat over digital taxes called into question the stability of an agreement barely signed. If European countries applying digital taxes are now exposed to massive tariff retaliation, the **June 25** deal protects them only partially — and only on manufactured goods. It says nothing about digital taxes. This is an exploitable gap that the **Trump** administration immediately sought to use as additional leverage.

### The fragility of trade agreements in the Trump era

This sequence — deal signed on **June 25**, threat launched on **June 26** — perfectly illustrates Trumpian trade logic: agreements are never stable endpoints, but launching pads for new demands. Signing a deal does not interrupt the pressure — it redirects it toward the next point of friction.

For European negotiators and for governments that must explain to their publics the value of negotiating with **Washington**, this instability is a concrete political problem. How do you justify painful concessions on an agreement that can be called into question by a tweet the day after it is signed? American credibility as a long-term trade partner is a resource that erodes with every episode of this kind.

*I have followed several cycles of transatlantic trade negotiations over the years. What I see since the start of Trump's second term is qualitatively different: not normal negotiating pressure between partners pursuing their interests, but a logic of permanent demand maximization with no stable equilibrium point. It is diplomatically exhausting. And Europe pays the cost in political capital, investment certainty, and internal cohesion.*

## The French wine tariff: a defining episode

### France in the crosshairs: where culture meets commerce

The mention in the **June 26** threat of the **"French wine tax"** — announced, then suspended in a cycle of retaliatory exchanges — illustrates how tensions over digital taxes become entangled with other trade files to create a complex web of cross-pressures. **France** had considered applying a tax on American wine imports in retaliation for American threats over digital taxes. This measure was suspended in the course of negotiations, but it remains in the potential arsenal of European reprisals.

The American wine industry — particularly the vineyards of **California**, **Oregon**, and **Washington State** — is politically significant enough that the threat of a French tax resonates in several key states. Equally, French wine exports to the **United States** represent a major commercial and cultural stake for **France**. These exchanges of threats over culturally charged products reveal how digital trade wars can quickly spill over into traditional sectors, endangering historically solid trade relationships.

### Culture as a target of trade wars

The inclusion of French wine in trade tensions is symptomatic of a troubling trend: in contemporary trade wars, everything is potentially a weapon, including the cultural products that embody each country's national identity. When French wine, camembert, champagne, or cognac are threatened, you are not only hitting an industry — you are sending a signal to the cultural identity of an allied country.

This is a form of symbolic violence that normal trade relations between allies should never produce. Countries that have fought side by side, that share common values, that are members of the same **Atlantic Alliance**, should not have to threaten each other's cultural products to resolve fiscal disagreements. The fact that such threats have become commonplace in **U.S.-Europe** relations is an indicator of the deterioration of the transatlantic partnership.

*I drink wine. I will not say which kind or where it comes from, because that is not the point. But I want the absurdity of the situation to be clear: allies fighting together to defend Ukraine against Russia are threatening each other over Bordeaux and California Chardonnay tariffs. This is an image of Atlantic disorder that even the most cynical Russian strategists could not have invented.*

## The GAFA companies and their fiscal responsibilities: a debate only just beginning

### Tech giants between American protection and their global obligations

The American companies directly affected by European digital taxes — **Alphabet/Google**, **Apple**, **Meta**, **Amazon**, and **Microsoft** — find themselves in an uncomfortable position. On one hand, they benefit from American diplomatic protection against these taxes. On the other, they operate in dozens of European countries where their brand image depends in part on being seen as responsible actors and equitable contributors to society.

These companies know that the trade war triggered in their name over digital taxes damages them long-term in European markets. Consumer boycotts, calls for regulation, and anti-tech legislative decisions are more likely to emerge in a climate of trade tension than in a climate of cooperation. The question is not only how much they pay in taxes — it is also what kind of relationship they want to maintain with 450 million European consumers.

### The OECD minimum tax agreement: the structural solution still pending

The real solution to the digital tax problem is not a trade war between **Europe** and the **United States** — it is the implementation of the **OECD** agreement on the **minimum corporate tax rate** of **15%**, concluded in **2021** and ratified by more than **130 countries**. This agreement was designed precisely to address the fiscal asymmetries created by the digital economy — by ensuring that large multinationals pay a minimum of tax in each country where they generate profits.

But implementing this agreement is running into American political resistance. The **U.S. Congress** has never ratified the corresponding provisions, creating an absurd situation: the **United States** complains about European national digital taxes while blocking the multilateral solution that would make them unnecessary. This is a contradiction that European negotiators consistently raise and that **Washington** prefers to ignore.

*The solution exists. It is called the OECD minimum tax agreement. It has been negotiated, signed, and is partially in force. What is missing is the American political will to implement it fully. As long as it is not, European countries will continue to adopt their own national taxes. And Trump will continue to threaten them. It is a vicious cycle whose exit is known — it simply requires Washington to be willing to walk through the door.*

## The impact on European businesses and consumers

### Who would actually pay the 100% tariffs?

The threat of **100%** tariffs on goods from countries applying digital taxes would be devastating for specific sectors. The French wine industry, German automakers, Italian cosmetics manufacturers, Spanish agri-food producers — all would be hit indiscriminately, including those that have absolutely nothing to do with their governments' digital tax policies.

This is precisely the cruelty of the threat: it punishes entire sectors for the fiscal decisions of their governments. A Burgundian winemaker has no control over Paris's digital tax policy. But if **France** maintains its digital services tax, its wines could face **100%** duties entering the **United States** — making their export economically impossible. This is sectoral hostage-taking, not trade policy.

### American consumers as collateral victims

The threat of **100%** tariffs on European goods would also directly affect American consumers. Products like wine, mineral water, cheeses, pharmaceuticals, luxury automobiles, and European industrial goods would become either far more expensive or simply unavailable in the American market. In the context of inflation running at **4.2%** in May **2026**, adding **100%** tariffs on common European imports would directly worsen the inflationary problem the administration claims to want to solve.

This internal contradiction — threatening massive tariffs on imports during a period of high inflation — is not a miscalculation. It is deliberate: the **100%** tariff threat is probably not designed to be fully executed. It is a maximalist pressure tool aimed at forcing concessions on the digital tax question. But playing with threats of this magnitude creates real economic instability, even if the tariffs are ultimately not applied in their entirety.

*I want to be honest about what I do not know: I do not know whether Trump will follow through on his threats or whether they are purely tactical. His track record is mixed — sometimes he backs down, sometimes he follows through. But the problem with maximalist threats is that they create real economic uncertainty even when they are not executed. And uncertainty has a cost that businesses and workers pay, whether or not the tariffs ever take effect.*

## The European response: between solidarity and internal divisions

### The European Commission facing an existential threat to the June 25 deal

The **European Commission** responded to the **June 26, 2026** threat with a combination of public firmness and private diplomatic anxiety. Officially, **Brussels** defended the right of member states to apply their national digital taxes in accordance with European law and **OECD** norms. Behind closed doors, European negotiators found themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether the laboriously negotiated **June 25** trade agreement was being put at risk by the digital taxes of a handful of member states.

**France** and its digital taxes are at the center of this intra-European tension. **Paris** maintains a firm stance on its fiscal sovereignty, but other member states — particularly those whose exports to the **United States** are more vulnerable to tariff retaliation — are applying quiet pressure for **France** to moderate its position. This is the classic European dilemma: how to maintain a coherent collective negotiating position when member state interests diverge under pressure.

### European divisions as American leverage

The **Trump** administration is perfectly aware of these intra-European divisions and exploits them systematically. The strategy of targeting threats at specific countries rather than at the **European Union** as a whole is deliberate: it aims to create tensions between member states, to encourage them to decouple from their European partners in favor of bilateral deals with **Washington**, and to weaken **Brussels**' coherence as a single commercial actor.

This strategy is not new — it was used during **Trump**'s first term and under previous administrations. But its effectiveness depends on the solidity of European cohesion. If **Europe** speaks with one voice, the pressure is easier to resist. If each member state begins to negotiate separately, **Washington** can divide and conquer. This is the fundamental test of the moment for European trade policy.

*European unity in the face of American trade pressure is not guaranteed — it must be built with each crisis. I have seen Europe divide under first-term Trumpian pressure. I have also seen moments when it held. The difference often came down to a few courageous political decisions in Paris, Berlin, or Brussels. I do not know whether those decisions will be taken this time. But I know the stakes are considerable.*

## The GAFA companies and American foreign policy: an increasingly complex relationship

### When technological power and geopolitical power converge

**Washington**'s defense of the **GAFA** companies against European digital taxes reveals a growing fusion between American technological and geopolitical power. The major American digital platforms are not merely companies — they are also vectors of American cultural, economic, and informational influence worldwide. Their dominance over social networks, search engines, e-commerce, and cloud infrastructure is a form of geopolitical power that **Washington** considers strategically important to protect.

This fusion creates dilemmas for European allies. Welcoming **GAFA** services without fairly taxing them amounts to subsidizing American geopolitical power from European tax revenues. Taxing them means exposing oneself to **Washington**'s commercial retaliation. **Europe** is caught in a structural vise that reveals the deep tensions between the transatlantic strategic alliance and the diverging economic interests of the two sides of the Atlantic.

### European digital sovereignty as a strategic response

An increasing number of voices in **Europe** are calling for **digital sovereignty** that would reduce European dependence on American platforms. The development of European alternatives in cloud computing (**Gaia-X**), social networks, artificial intelligence, and e-commerce is presented as a long-term strategic necessity. If **Europe** wants to freely exercise its fiscal and regulatory sovereignty over the digital economy, it must reduce its dependence on the actors who are the subject of that regulation.

This ambition is real, but its realization is long and difficult. The **GAFA** companies hold network, scale, and innovation advantages that cannot be erased in a few years of European public initiatives. Digital sovereignty is a decade-long project, not a legislative-term one. In the meantime, **Europe** will continue to depend on American platforms while trying to tax them — and **Washington** will continue to exploit that dependence as a pressure lever.

*I support the European digital sovereignty ambition. Not out of anti-Americanism — but because I believe a Europe capable of acting independently in the digital space is a stronger, more resilient Europe and a more balanced partner for the United States. Healthy alliances rest on partners of comparable strength, not on structural dependencies that one exploits against the other.*

## The geopolitical impact: China watches, Russia celebrates

### The West's adversaries profit from transatlantic tensions

While the **United States** and **Europe** quarrel over digital taxes and **100%** tariffs, **China** and **Russia** watch with undisguised interest. **Beijing**, which has long sought to weaken Atlantic cohesion, receives every trade dispute between **Washington** and **Brussels** as a geostrategic dividend. Chinese state media relayed the **100%** threat with eagerness, using it as proof that **Washington** treats its European allies as vassals rather than partners.

**Moscow**, for its part, has sought from the very beginning of the war in **Ukraine** to break Euro-Atlantic solidarity. Every trade tension between the **United States** and **Europe** is amplified in Russian propaganda as a sign that the alliance is fragile and that support for **Ukraine** is driven by American economic interests rather than shared values. These narratives resonate in certain segments of European public opinion, particularly in countries suffering most from inflation linked to sanctions.

### Ukraine and Atlantic cohesion: inseparable stakes

Support for **Ukraine** and transatlantic commercial cohesion are inseparable issues. **Ukraine** is defending Western values in a struggle that requires a united Atlantic response — in terms of arms, economic sanctions, financial support, and diplomatic backing. This unity is directly weakened by trade disputes between **Washington** and its European allies.

When **Trump** threatens **Europe** with **100%** tariffs to punish it for its digital taxes, he creates an atmosphere of mistrust that complicates every other item on the transatlantic agenda — including support for **Kyiv**. European governments that feel they are victims of American commercial unilateralism are less inclined to absorb the political cost of sanctions against **Russia** or to increase their defense budgets at **Washington**'s request. The digital trade war has implications that extend far beyond the fiscal balance sheets of the GAFA companies.

*I may be repeating myself, but it is because the message deserves to be repeated: every trade dispute between Washington and its European allies is a strategic gift to Putin and Xi. The Western camp cannot afford this distraction. And yet we sink deeper into it, dispute after dispute, threat after threat. I do not know how we break this vicious cycle — but I know the answer is not capitulation.*

## Possible solutions: exit routes in an explosive dossier

### Multilateral tax diplomacy as the only durable way out

The only durable resolution to the digital tax conflict is a multilateral solution — the full implementation of the **OECD** minimum tax agreement, including the provisions on digital companies. If the **United States** were to ratify and implement these provisions, European countries would no longer need their national digital taxes, since the fiscal problem those taxes seek to address would be handled by global rules.

This solution requires two things the current administration is not prepared to provide: a willingness to compel major American tech companies to pay a minimum tax in each country where they generate revenues, and an acceptance that American competitiveness in the digital space cannot rest indefinitely on fiscal advantages built at the expense of foreign tax authorities. These two concessions are politically difficult for **Trump** — but they are the only ones that would allow a durable exit from this impasse.

### A temporary moratorium as an intermediate step

In the short term, negotiators on both sides are seeking a **temporary moratorium** formula: European countries agree to suspend their digital taxes while the **OECD**'s multilateral solution is implemented, and the **United States** agrees not to apply its tariff threats during this period. This type of moratorium was attempted during **Trump**'s first term — with mixed results, as the parties failed to agree on timelines and conditions.

A temporary moratorium would be an imperfect solution — it defers the problem rather than resolving it. But in a context of multiple trade tensions and pressing geopolitical emergencies, deferring a potentially devastating conflict may be the wisest short-term decision. The art of commercial diplomacy is not always to solve problems — sometimes it is to make them temporarily less urgent.

*Commercial diplomacy is often the art of deferring problems with sufficient elegance that no one loses face. This is not my definition of political courage — but in the current state of transatlantic relations, a good temporary moratorium on digital taxes would be infinitely preferable to a trade war from which everyone would emerge weakened, especially Ukraine.*

## The international press and coverage of the threat: between signal and noise

### How the threat was covered and what it reveals about Trumpian communication

The **100%** threat of **June 26, 2026** received wide international media coverage, but with very different readings. American media close to the Republican camp presented it as a legitimate defense of American economic interests against foreign discrimination. European media and center-left American outlets presented it as an irresponsible escalation that weakens alliances.

This divergence in interpretation is not trivial: it reflects a fragmentation of commercial reality perception that makes transatlantic political dialogue even more difficult. When American and European citizens do not share a common reading of basic commercial facts, negotiating compromises becomes exponentially harder. Trumpian presidential communication, which deliberately maximizes noise to dominate the media agenda, contributes to this fragmentation.

### The threat as a narrative domination strategy

A **100%** threat over digital taxes on **June 26** will probably not be executed in its entirety. But it achieved its immediate objective: dominating the transatlantic media agenda for the days that followed, forcing **Europe** to react from a defensive posture, and demonstrating to the American electoral base that **Trump** is "fighting" for American interests. This is as much communications policy as it is trade policy.

For columnists like myself, this type of statement creates a dilemma: ignoring it means denying it the visibility it seeks, but allowing the threat to dominate the narrative without analysis cedes the ground to its promoters. The only reasoned response is what I am doing in this column: analyzing, contextualizing, and resisting the temptation to treat every Trumpian declaration as either certainty or non-reality. The truth lies somewhere between the two — and that is where journalism must be.

*I am a columnist, not a prophet. I do not know whether the 100% tariffs will be applied. Nor do I know whether the threat will achieve the fiscal concessions it seeks. What I know is that the mere act of launching threats of this scale into public space creates real effects — on financial markets, on investment decisions, on allied cohesion. Presidential words carry a weight that even Trumpian volatility cannot entirely erase.*

## The future of digital taxes and fiscal sovereignty in the GAFA era

### The digital tax question at the heart of the 21st century

The digital tax dispute is symptomatic of a deeper tension that will define the economic policy of the **21st century**: how do states tax companies whose activities are global, dematerialized, and organized to minimize their national tax obligations? This is not a problem that will be solved by trade threats between allies — it is a structural challenge of global economic governance that requires sustained international cooperation.

Developing countries, too, suffer from this fiscal asymmetry. The revenues generated by digital platforms in countries like **Senegal**, **Brazil**, or **India** flee to tax havens just as readily as revenues generated in **France** or **Germany**. The digital tax question is therefore both a matter of fiscal sovereignty for Western democracies and a question of global economic justice.

### The next generation of tensions: AI, data, and geopolitics

If taxes on current digital services already create major tensions, the coming debates over the taxation of **artificial intelligence**, **personal data**, and cloud infrastructure will be even more complex and contentious. The economic value of **AI** — which depends heavily on data collected from users worldwide — raises questions about who should receive the fiscal benefits of that value created.

These questions remain largely unresolved in international fiscal and regulatory frameworks. They will be at the heart of the next major trade disputes between the **United States**, **Europe**, and **China** — which is also developing its own tech giants and its own vision of digital sovereignty. The digital tax dispute of **June 26, 2026** is only a preview of far more complex battles that will unfold in the decades ahead.

*I believe the question of taxing tech giants is one of the most important political and economic issues of our time — and one of the least well understood by the general public. Not because people lack intelligence, but because the technical and legal complexity of these questions is deliberately kept opaque by those who do not want the debate to happen. Clarifying, simplifying, making these issues accessible: that is what I strive to do in this column.*

## A columnist's uncertainty: what I know and what I do not

### The limits of my own analysis

I am a columnist, not a fiscal economist or a trade negotiator. My analysis of the **June 26, 2026** threat rests on public sources, available academic readings, and several years of following international trade policy. I do not have access to internal negotiating positions, nor to the real intention behind the **100%** threat within the American administration.

What I can assert with confidence: the threat is real in the sense that it was publicly made by the President of the **United States**. Its effects on financial markets, investment decisions, and diplomatic postures are documentable. Its outcome — will it be followed by concrete action or remain a rhetorical threat? — is genuinely uncertain for me and for all observers who do not have access to the White House's internal calculations.

### What this column aims to accomplish

This column aims to give readers a more complete analytical framework than simple event reporting. Understanding why digital taxes exist, why they create tensions with **Washington**, why the **June 25** deal is fragile, and why these trade disputes affect Atlantic cohesion beyond the purely economic dimension — this is the columnist's work. Not to provide definitive answers, but to ask the right questions and provide the context necessary for readers to form their own informed opinion.

On this particular file, my view is clear: the **100%** threat of **June 26, 2026** is a form of coercion between allies that weakens the West at the precise moment it most needs cohesion. I own this conviction fully. And I hope that those with the power to choose a different path take its measure before the damage becomes irreparable.

*Ultimately, why this column? Because digital taxes and 100% tariffs can seem like topics for economists and lobbyists. But behind every tariff percentage stands a winemaker, an autoworker, a tech engineer, a consumer. And behind every trade dispute between allies stands an opportunity for our adversaries to divide us. I want my readers to see both dimensions simultaneously.*

## Conclusion: the digital tax as a test of the transatlantic partnership

### What is really at stake in this trade dispute

The **100%** threat launched on **June 26, 2026** over European digital taxes is a test of the transatlantic partnership whose outcome will say much about the direction the **West** is heading. Either both parties find a negotiated path — imperfect, compromised, but mutually acceptable — and preserve a laboriously built trade agreement. Or the escalation logic prevails, and a permanent digital trade war between allies takes hold, with all the geopolitical consequences that implies for support of **Ukraine** and the cohesion of the **Atlantic Alliance**.

Time works against peaceful resolution: every week without an agreement is a week in which companies adapt their strategies, in which governments harden their positions for internal political reasons, and in which the West's adversaries amplify the signals of division. The window for an honorable exit narrows with every escalation cycle. Those with the power to open that window — in **Washington** as in **Brussels** — have no time to hesitate.

### The West deserves better than this dispute

The **West** is fighting against itself over digital taxes while **Russia** is bombing **Ukraine**, while **China** is building its economic sphere of influence in **Asia** and **Africa**, and while **Iran** maintains regional destabilization capabilities. This disproportion between the urgency of external threats and the energy devoted to internal disputes is one of the most troubling symptoms of the contemporary Western crisis. We deserve better. And those fighting for our values — Ukrainian soldiers, Russian dissidents, Iranian human rights activists — deserve better too.

Resolving the digital tax file will not solve all of the West's problems. But demonstrating that two allied democracies can find a way out of a trade crisis without treating each other as enemies would send a signal of coherence and institutional maturity that the West desperately needs. This is not too much to ask. It is the minimum.

*I close this column with a feeling I do not want to dress up as political analysis: fatigue. The fatigue of watching allies treat each other as adversaries. The fatigue of triple-digit threats lobbed like grenades into the media space. The fatigue of having to explain once more that the West is stronger united than divided. Everyone knows this. So why do we keep acting as if we do not?*

## Final conclusion: Trump, the GAFA companies, and Europe — a triangle without balance

### What I wished June 26 had been

**June 26, 2026** could have been the day the **United States** and **Europe**, buoyed by the new trade agreement of **June 25**, jointly announced a multilateral framework for digital taxation that would have made national taxes and tariff threats unnecessary. That is not what happened. Instead, a **100%** threat was launched, creating instability where there should have been construction.

Trade policy is not merely economic technique — it is also an act of trust or distrust between partners. What **June 26, 2026** produced was distrust. It can still be converted to trust if both parties choose the path of negotiation over escalation. But every day that passes without that choice makes the conversion harder. I remain optimistic by conviction — that shared interests ultimately always prevail over short-term tactics between allies. But my optimism is not blind.

*Zelensky is fighting so that the West remains strong and united. I think of him every time I document another trade dispute between Washington and its allies. Because every fracture in Western unity is a boost of oxygen for Putin — and one more reason for Ukrainians to wonder whether their sacrifices are truly worth it. They deserve an affirmative answer. And that answer runs through resolving these unnecessary trade disputes too.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [The New York Times — Trump threatens tariffs on Europe over digital taxes — June 26, 2026](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/business/economy/trump-tariffs-europe.html)

- [Reuters — Why Trump's tariffs had plenty of bark but limited bite — June 30, 2026](https://www.reuters.com/commentary/reuters-open-interest/why-trumps-tariffs-had-plenty-bark-limited-bite-2026-06-30/)

- [Yeni Safak — EU adopts U.S. trade tariff commitments — June 2026](https://en.yenisafak.com/world/eu-adopts-us-trade-tariff-commitments-3720009)

### Secondary sources

- NAMPA — EU-U.S. trade agreement: tariff commitments — June 2026

- [Axios — Trump, Supreme Court and economy — June 30, 2026](https://www.axios.com/2026/06/30/trump-supreme-court-economy)

- [CNBC — Supreme Court rulings: Fed, FTC, consumers — June 29, 2026](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/29/supreme-court-rulings-fed-ftc-consumers.html)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/chronique-trump-menace-l-europe-d-une-taxe-de-100-la-guerre-numerique-qui-couve-