The UK government reportedly offered significant tax cuts to US technology companies in a bid to shield the country from fresh tariffs, as the Donald Trump administration gets set to announce a new round of levies later today.

According to UK newspaper The Guardian, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has offered to reduce the headline rate of its digital services tax (DST), while continuing to apply the standard levy to companies from other nations.

The news outlet reported the UK currently raises around £800 million a year from DST, with big US players paying a 2 per cent levy on the UK revenue.

Starmer’s offer to reduce this comes as Trump’s administration is poised to set out fresh tariffs, in what has been dubbed by the White House as “liberation day”, igniting fears that the announcement will ignite a full-scale trade war.

Countries that are impacted are likely to hit back with their own tariffs, and while Starmer has not made such a threat, he has stated that all options are “on the table”.

Form of tax
Technology taxation and antitrust fines against the likes of Apple, Google and Microsoft have been on the President’s agenda since he took office for a second time.

Speaking at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump took aim at European Union (EU) regulators for ongoing EU cases against US technology companies, branding fines resulting from them as “a form of taxation”.

Trump has lobbied against digital taxation across the world and issued an executive order in February, vowing to “defend American companies and innovators from overseas extortion and unfair fines and penalties”.