ADVERTISEMENT

France’s Le Maire Says in Good Mood for Talks With U.S.

France’s Le Maire Says in Good Mood for Talks With U.S.

(Bloomberg) --

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he’s hopeful for a compromise with the U.S. on digital tax to avoid a transatlantic trade war.

“We are in a good mood for negotiating,” Le Maire said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday.

Le Maire was speaking just ahead of a key meeting on digital tax and tariffs with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum later Wednesday, the two finance chiefs aim to finalize a deal that would avoid U.S. tariffs on French goods in retaliation for France’s tax on multinational digital firms.

France’s Le Maire Says in Good Mood for Talks With U.S.

“We are working on an agreement with Steven Mnuchin, and I hope we can get a compromise in a few hours,” Le Maire said. “Entering into a trade war between Europe and the U.S. would be foolish.”

The U.S. is threatening tariffs as high as 100% on $2.4 billion of French goods as it says France’s digital tax -- which hits U.S. internet giants like Google, Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. -- is discriminatory.

France denies that -- it’s also paid by European and Chinese firms -- but is ready to make changes to it to appease the U.S.

Le Maire said he is prepared to delay collections of the tax due in April and November until the end of the year, so long as the U.S. refrains from imposing new tariffs.

“We have not decided to withdraw our taxation -- we have just proposed not have the prepayment of April and November,” Le Maire said.

Le Maire says the deal with the U.S. will pave the way to accelerate global talks on digital taxation at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. France initially introduced the tax to put pressure on the OECD talks to find a solution. If there is a global deal, France had pledged to drop it.

To contact the reporters on this story: Francine Lacqua in London at flacqua@bloomberg.net;William Horobin in Paris at whorobin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, Brendan Murray, Zoe Schneeweiss

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.