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by bardak 490 days ago
Most US state sales taxes also apply to imported products so should othe countries consider that a tariff as well?
1 comments

I think Trump is advocating for reciprocity so yes if they want to then of course. Ultimately the objective is to to remove trade tariffs/taxes completely but that's not going to happen till there is an incentive for countries to come to the table.
VAT is not a tarrif or trade tax it is simply appling a consumption tax to all goods foreign and domestic.
See my original point.
Other countries are not going to let the USA determine domestic tax policies.

If they did remove VAT from items imported from the United States it would lead to the absurd situation where a US merchant could import an item from Germany without VAT and then sell it to consumers in Germany without VAT undercutting German retailers and denying the German government their consumption tax revenue

No problem. In that case the US can restore balance in the trade relationship with tariffs.