In the green of Scotland, in the shadow of the Trump-owned Turnberry Golf Club, a decisive game is being played for the future of economic relations between Europe and the United States. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, has flown there with the aim of sealing a trade deal that avoids a new protectionist escalation. The sticking point? A compromise on the level of duties (a general 15% tariff) and, above all, a symbolic but meaningful sacrifice: the suspension of the European web tax.

It was predictable. Indeed, probably inevitable.

The web tax, for years the workhorse of a certain ideologised Europe, has always had a double face: on the one hand, the claim to rebalance the taxation of digital multinationals; on the other, an exquisitely political impulse, at times protectionist and often explicitly anti-American. A form of resistance to the domination of Big Tech overseas, which has served – rather than to correct real fiscal distortions – to send a message: we Europeans do not want to be digitally colonised.

But today, in 2025, this message seems worn out. Not only because no member state has really managed to implement an effective digital tax, but also because the European Union, under economic and geopolitical attack from several fronts, needs to strengthen its alliances – not fuel symbolic clashes.

A pragmatic rather than ambitious compromise was therefore reached in Turnberry: general duties on European goods entering the US will be set at 15%, according to a model similar to the one already applied with Japan. This is a significant reduction compared to the 30% threatened in recent months by Trump, who had included key sectors such as cars, agri-foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals in his sights. Some more sensitive areas, such as steel and aluminium, remain outside the compromise and will continue to face high tariffs (up to 50%).

In return, Brussels decided to suspend the proposed taxation of American digital giants. This is not a technical renunciation, but a political one. The von der Leyen Commission took responsibility for dismantling a weapon that, in fact, had more symbolic than fiscal value.

And this is where European reflection needs to be deepened. Are we really convinced that a tax applied exclusively to a handful of American companies – Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft – represented a fair and neutral reform? Or was it rather an expression of political hostility masquerading as tax justice?

That the web tax was discriminatory, the United States has always argued strongly. But it is time for Europe too to take note, at least in part. Because the truth is that the proposal was born and grew out of an anti-American cultural reflex, fed by distrust and frustration, rather than a real desire to reform international tax law. And that it is precisely this ideological charge that has made the web tax ineffective, unpopular and ultimately indefensible in negotiations.

In the Scottish agreement, therefore, Europe does not lose a commercial battle, but it does challenge a rhetoric. The rhetoric of a Europe that is a bulwark against digital imperialism, but without endowing itself with its own competitive ecosystem. The web tax was a symbolic shortcut in the face of a strategic failure: the absence of a true single digital market, of a sovereign technological infrastructure, of industrial champions capable of competing with American Big Tech.

However, the hard-won compromise does not convince everyone. Olivier Blanchard, one of Europe’s most authoritative economists, expressed a stark judgement in these hours: “Why on earth should the European Union be willing to accept, as it seems ready to do, the 15% tariff? Are we really so weak that this is the best we can hope for?“. His point is clear: accepting a generalised 15% tariff means sanctioning an unbalanced relationship, in which Europe comes to the negotiating table without sufficient negotiating strength. In other words, a surrender in the face of American unilateralism.

Blanchard’s doubts

The question raised by Blanchard is crucial: is the EU really choosing the best possible deal, or is it simply avoiding the worst? And, more importantly, can it afford to accept such an onerous compromise without immediately raising the level of its strategic ambition?

The good news is that Europe, at least today, has chosen reality. It has chosen to sit down at the table with Washington, to lower its tone and focus on business dialogue. It does so at a delicate time, when global tensions – from Ukraine to the Middle East – call for a solid convergence among Western democracies.

But reality alone is not enough. Whether or not an agreement is signed in Turnberry, the European Union has a much more difficult and no longer postponable task ahead of it: to compete. To compete on the innovation and technology front, unleashing the growth potential of its start-ups, attracting new business ideas and fostering the inflow of capital to the continent. If an understanding with the United States is indeed reached, the next step must be to raise the bar of competitiveness.

Europe’s real challenge is not tariffs, but the ability to compete

Because in the new world order, those who give up the symbolic defence must at least win the concrete battle. No longer the illusion of defending oneself with taxes, but the determination to win with ideas.

Giving up the web tax will not be a favour to America, but to European ambitions. To our true ambitions: to build an autonomous technological ecosystem, to free entrepreneurial energies, to attract capital and talent, to shape a Europe that does not just react but innovates, leads and competes. Dismantling an ideological totem can be the beginning of a more courageous and modern industrial policy. Because we no longer need a Europe that punishes those who innovate elsewhere: we need a Europe that knows how to innovate here.