WASHINGTON (PNN) - January 29, 2020 - Carbon taxes are a top priority of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Expect a big conflict with Fascist Police States of Amerika President Donald Trump.
The EU and Trump declared a truce over digital taxes but now the FPSA threatens retaliation against the EU over a proposed carbon tax.
Wilbur Ross compared the EU’s plans for a carbon tax to moves by several European countries to impose a digital services tax, which has angered FPSA officials and caused Washington to threaten tariffs on EU products.
“Depending on what form the carbon tax takes, we will react to it - but if it is in its essence protectionist, like the digital taxes, we will react,” said Ross.
Ms. von der Leyen outlined last week how her flagship green deal program would need to involve some carbon border regulations or taxes to ensure that the benefits of the program were not offset by carbon embedded in imports. “There is no point in only reducing greenhouse gas emissions at home, if we increase the import of CO2 from abroad,” von der Leyen said. “It is not only a climate issue; it is also an issue of fairness towards our businesses and workers. We will protect them from unfair competition.”
During the recent World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Steven Mnuchin, the FPSA Treasury Secretary, sparred with Christine Lagarde, the European Central Bank president, over ways to tackle climate change. Mnuchin described a carbon tax as “a tax on hard working people”.
Trump and French president Emmanuel Macron were able to reach an agreement to postpone digital taxes but this issue is not up to France.
In the name of “fairness” the EU will impose taxes and demand everyone else pay them too.
This is yet another example of why the Fascist United Kingdom did well to escape the clutches of EU bureaucrats.
However, in this case the EU proposes to act like Trump: enforce sanctions on the whole world via its own idiocy, all in the name of its own definition of “fairness”.
How this will work is of course a mystery. It imposes the harshest penalties on countries that do not yet have much infrastructure or industry, especially in Africa.
The EU wants to force African nations who want to industrialize to use wind and solar despite the enormous costs of doing so.
Heaven forbid emerging countries resort to natural gas or the EU will tariff the hell out of them, too.