France has warned the US that it will face retaliation from the EU if it tries to impose “highly disproportionate” trade tariffs in response to its digital tax on the likes of Google and Amazon.

In a letter to Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, on January 3, Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, said that “if the US were to decide to impose trade sanctions against the EU over the French Digital Services Tax, it would deeply and durably affect the transatlantic relationship at a time when we need to stand united”.

France is “in touch with the European Commission and other EU Member States on the subject” and they are “contemplating the various options to defend our trade rights in a proportionate and determined manner, as we have in the past,” the minister wrote.