alt Hacker NewsHow did the value added tax (which is paid by all companies including domestic ones) become the same as import duty?
The only way that you can make that tariffs charged to the USA is the level Trump claims (ie. 39% in the EU) is if you include VAT.
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Some of the workers won't understand that EU companies also have to pay the same VAT in the EU, so they think it's correct reasoning.
VAT is not paid by companies. It is paid by consumers and collected by companies. The US have the sales tax, which is similar.
It absolutely does not make sense to count VAT as a "tariff". I am sure they know it.
Maybe that applying VAT to imports is done asymmetrically? If, for example, I'm a US citizen importing a european widget, will federal and state sales tax be applied on import?
If they're not, then this might be why they're considered thus.
People keep making the mistake of thinking that there is any sort of logical consistency to Trump policies.
Not if you include trade barriers like the DMA, a law which is used to milk US technology companies through vague court rulings with arbitrary fines.
The EU is the undisputed king of vague laws that are applied principally to competitors with arbitrary fines.
How do you implement GDPR? Don't ask us, but if you violate it watch out!
How do you comply with DMA? Don't ask us, but if you violate it watch out!
He has talked about VAT, but in terms of how they ended up with those numbers, people noticed that the claimed rates don't have anything to do with the actual tariff/VAT/etc. rates, they're just based on the relative size of the US trade deficit with each country.
The gloss will be "this way captures all the various unfair things they're doing to us that are the cause of all these trade deficits" but that's just, well, gloss.