Section 301 Investigation of Digital Services Taxes

On February 21, 2025, President Trump directed the U.S. Trade Representative to determine whether to renew the Section 301 investigations of the digital services taxes of France, Austria, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. If a positive determination is made, USTR will take “all appropriate and feasible action in response to those DSTs.”

USTR was also directed to take a number of other actions, which you can read details on in this Trade Report article.

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History of DST Investigations

On June 2, 2020, the Trump administration announced Section 301 investigations into digital services taxes adopted or under consideration by Austria, Brazil, the Czech Republic, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

In March 2021 USTR terminated the investigations of Brazil, the Czech Republic, the European Union, and Indonesia because those jurisdictions did not implement the DSTs under consideration.

In January 2021 USTR found that the DSTs adopted by India, Italy, Turkey, Austria, France, Spain , and the United Kingdom each discriminate against U.S. companies and burden or restrict U.S. commerce. Although USTR announced its intent to impose additional tariffs, those tariffs were suspended to provide additional time to complete ongoing multilateral negotiations.

On October 21, 2021, the U.S. reached a deal with Austria, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. These countries agreed to withdraw their national DSTs and the U.S. agreed to terminate the suspended additional tariffs on goods from those countries. The Section 301 DST investigations of Austria, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom were terminated on November 18, 2021.

In November 2021 the U.S. reached the same deal with Turkey and India and terminated its Section 301 trade actions regarding those countries in December 2022.