Italy and the United States issued a joint statement against ‘discriminatory’ taxes on digital services yesterday, in a possible signal Rome is moving away from a levy that has irked Washington.
The statement came as Meloni held back-to-back transatlantic meetings with Donald Trump and his deputy JD Vance, winning a warm welcome from the US president that contrasted with his frostier treatment of other European leaders.
European levies aimed at hitting dominant US tech giants such as Alphabet’s Google, Meta’s Facebook, Apple and Amazon have been a longstanding irritant for US administrations, including Trump’s.
Italy applies a three per cent levy on revenue from Internet transactions for digital companies with sales of at least 750 million euros ($853.35m), which is worth less than 500m euros in revenue for the state each year.
“We agreed that a non-discriminatory environment in terms of digital services taxation is necessary to enable investments from cutting-edge tech companies,” Rome and Washington said following Meloni’s visit to the White House on Thursday.
The statement did not clarify whether Rome had committed to scrapping the tax.
Meanwhile, Trump has agreed to an official visit to Rome and will consider also meeting representatives of the European Union while there.
Meloni’s US trip came amid a tariff row between Washington and Brussels and was seen as an attempt to facilitate dialogue and leverage the good relationship between the two leaders following a US decision to pause most duties for 90 days.
Trump called Meloni – who was the only EU leader invited to his inauguration in January – a ‘very special person’ and ‘a friend’ who ‘has taken Europe by storm’, while the Italian leader said they both shared the fight against ‘woke’ ideology.
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