Tech giants pressure Trump to target ‘coercive and discriminatory’ Australian media laws
US tech giants have urged the Trump administration to target “coercive” Australian media laws, as the US president ordered the US Education Department be “eliminated”.
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Tech giants Apple, Meta, Google, Amazon and Elon Musk’s X are pressuring the Trump administration to target “coercive and discriminatory” Australian media laws.
Members of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which is an international advocacy organisation based in Washington, DC for the tech industry were asked for comments by The Office of the US Trade Representative regarding Australia’s media regulations.
In comments written to the USTR trade chief on 11 March, the trade policy manager of the CCIA Amir Nasr targeted Australia’s News Media Bargaining Incentive as one of the “key examples” of discriminatory taxation of digital products and services, The Guardian reports.
The incentive involves taxing digital platforms, which can be offset if they pay news publishers for content.
Mr Nasr wrote: “Australia’s extraction and redistribution of revenue from U.S. digital suppliers to local news businesses is reported to have cost US firms $US140 million ($A222 million) annually”.
The note defines Australia’s news media bargaining incentive as a “coercive and discriminatory tax that requires US technology companies to subsidise Australian media companies.”
Mr Nasr said thee are currently two companies forking out $A250 million per year through “deals that were coerced through the threat of this law.”
He predicted that the cost will increase once the Australian government imposes the new rate of the incentive tax.
The note also draws attention to Australia’s proposed requirements for US online video providers to fund Australian content.
“Companies could be required to pay anywhere between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of their local expenditure on Australian content, with qualifications that will likely make it very difficult for US companies to qualify.
“Australia’s online video streaming market is estimated to generate up to $US2.3 billion ($A3.6bn) of annual revenue, with the majority of it earned from US companies. If the Australian government pursues the 20 per cent expenditure mandate it has floated in the past year, that would put this revenue at risk,” Mr Nasr wrote.
TRUMP SIGNS ORDER TO ‘ELIMINATE’ EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
The president signed an order aimed at shutting down the Department of Education, a decades-old goal of the American right, which wants individual states to run schools free from the influence of federal government.
Surrounded by schoolchildren sitting at desks set up in the East Room of the White House, Donald Trump smiled as held up the order after signing it.
Mr Trump said the order would “begin eliminating the federal Department of Education once and for all.”
“We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible. It’s doing us no good,” he said.
“We’re going to return education back to the states where it belongs.”
The Education Department, created in 1979, cannot be shuttered without the approval of Congress – but Mr Trump’s order will likely have the power to starve it of funds and staff.
The move is one of the most drastic steps yet in the brutal overhaul of the government that Trump is carrying out with the help of tech tycoon Elon Musk and his Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Democrats and educators have slammed the move.
The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, called it a “tyrannical power grab” and “one of the most destructive and devastating steps Donald Trump has ever taken.”
Republican leaders, including governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, were in the audience for the signing ceremony.
Mr Trump has cast the move as necessary to save money and improve educational standards in the United States, saying they are lagging behind those in Europe and China.
But education has been a battleground for decades in America’s culture wars, and Republicans have long wanted to remove control of it from the federal government.
US CAPTIVE RELEASED BY TALIBAN AFTER HIGH LEVEL TALKS
An American man held hostage by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers since December 2022 was on his way back to the US on Thursday, local time, after Trump administration negotiators secured his freedom.
The Taliban kidnapped George Glezmann, 65, a US citizen, while he was on a trip to Afghanistan — but he has just been released following negotiations brokered by Trump envoy Adam Boehler and Qatari officials.
Mr Boehler met with Afghanistan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi to finalise Mr Glezmann’s release.
In late 2023, the State Department had declared him “wrongfully detained,” a label that had directed more federal resources toward his case, though he continued to languish in Taliban captivity.
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The departure of Mr Glezmann comes following weeks of talks among the three parties.
Two other American citizens — Ryan Corbett and William McKenty — were also released by the Taliban back to the US in January.
TRUMP TO DISMANTLE DEPT OF EDUCATION: REPORT
US President Donald Trump is expected to sign an order aiming to dismantle the Department of Education, fulfilling a long-held goal of American conservatives.
The order, which several media outlets have reported would be signed during a White House ceremony, comes as efforts are already underway in the department to drastically downsize its staffing and slash funding.
Mr Trump’s education secretary, former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon, issued a memo shortly after her swearing in on March 3 saying the agency would be beginning its “final mission.”
The next week, she moved to halve the department’s staff.
Mr Trump, 78, has repeatedly promised to decentralise education, as desired for decades by many Republicans.
Traditionally, the federal government has had a limited role in education in the United States, with only about 13 per cent of funding for primary and secondary schools coming from federal coffers, the rest being funded by states and local communities.
But federal funding is invaluable for low-income schools and students with special needs. And the federal government has been essential in enforcing key civil rights protections for students.
The order directs Ms McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate” the department’s closure, according to a copy viewed by Politico.
“His directive to me, clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education, which we know we’ll have to work with Congress, you know, to get that accomplished,” she said.
Several key programs are to be spared, such as those providing grants to university students and funding for low-income schools across the country, multiple outlets reported.
By law, the Education Department, created in 1979, cannot be shuttered without the approval of Congress and Republicans do not have the votes to push that through.
However, as with other federal agencies under Mr Trump’s second administration, the department is likely to see further cuts to programs and employees, which could significantly reduce its work.
The moves are being spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), whose rapid actions have met push back in courts for exceeding executive authority.
MUSK’S DAUGHTER SLAMS ‘CARTOONISHLY EVIL’ DAD
Vivian Jenna Wilson, Elon Musk’s eldest child, has spoken out publicly against her father, saying that he “definitely [did] a Nazi salute” at two rallies leading up to the election of Donald Trump and that he is part of a White House that’s “cartoonishly evil”.
In a new interview with Teen Vogue, her second interview with the media since she denounced her father last year, Wilson, 20, said, “The Nazi salute s**t was insane. Honey, we’re going to call a fig a fig, and we’re going to call a Nazi salute what it was,” Wilson said. “That s**t was definitely a Nazi salute.”
Wilson, a trans woman, entered the public eye last year after Musk spoke about her in a podcast, saying that he had been “tricked” into signing documents so that she could receive gender-affirming medical treatment at age 16.
US STOCKS CONTINUE DOWNWARD TREND
Wall Street stocks retreated early Thursday, local time, resuming a downward trend after gains on the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold interest rates steady and its chair’s optimism about the US economy.
The Fed also however trimmed its growth forecast for 2025 and hiked its inflation outlook, leading Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare to call the market’s reaction “a bit peculiar.” “The revised forecasts leaned in somewhat to the market’s stagflation worries,” he noted.
Stocks were back on the back foot again early Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down again.
Stocks have been under pressure in recent weeks amid talk of a potential US economic slowdown or recession due to uncertainty about President Donald Trump’s tariff plans.
Among individual companies, Tesla fell 1.1 per cent as the company recalled some 46,000 Cybertrucks because of a problem with an exterior trim panel, which can detach, increasing the risk of a crash.
Meanwhile, major global stock markets also retreated on Thursday following a weaker-than-forecast US economic outlook and despite the Federal Reserve trying to calm fears over President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
MILLIONS OF LIVES AT RISK AFTER ‘BRUTAL’ FUNDING CUTS
Dramatic aid cuts globally are putting millions of lives at risk, the UN has warned, as the agency braces for lay-offs amid the US foreign aid funding freeze.
“Brutal funding cuts in the humanitarian sector are putting millions of lives at risk,” Filippo Grandi said in a statement.
“The consequences for people fleeing danger will be immediate and devastating,” the UN high commissioner for refugees warned.
“Slashing aid will make the world less safe, driving more desperate people to become refugees or keep moving onwards.”
The United States is traditionally the world’s largest donor, and currently source of the biggest cuts roiling the global humanitarian sector.
“Children are being left without teachers or schools, pushing them into child labour, trafficking, or early marriage. Refugee communities will have less shelter, water and food.”
“With less funding, fewer staff and a smaller UNHCR presence in countries hosting refugees, the equation is simple: lives will be lost.”
– with AFP
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