Bloomberg | 28 May 2026
US trade chief says German streaming quotas violate trade deal
by Jenny Leonard and Michael Nienabe
President Donald Trump’s top trade official criticized a German draft law that would force American streaming services to invest in the country’s film sector, calling the measures discriminatory and a violation of the European Union’s trade deal with the US.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer lambasted the legislation approved by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s cabinet on Wednesday as treating US companies “like a piggy bank for pet, protectionist projects.” In a statement to Bloomberg News, Greer described the measure as a levy imposed on US businesses.
“If this tax on American companies is enacted, it would be at odds with the Turnberry Agreement, in which the European Union committed to ‘address unjustified digital trade barriers’ — not erect new ones,” Greer said on Thursday.
The EU last week finalized the text of its trade deal with the US after months of negotiations, clearing a path to ratifying the agreement before a threatened deadline by Trump to impose higher tariffs. Announced last July in Turnberry, Scotland, the deal entails the EU erasing levies on US industrial goods in exchange for a 15% tariff ceiling on exports from the 27-member bloc.
The German draft legislation, which still needs to be approved by German parliament, would require streaming services of companies such as Netflix Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Walt Disney Co. to invest at least 8% of local annual revenue in German productions.
Merz’s ruling alliance had agreed on the legislation last year as part of its coalition agreement. Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer said the legislation is meant to support the German film industry.
The US criticism compounds already tense relations between Washington and Berlin. Trump lashed out at Merz a month ago after the German leader said American negotiators were being “humiliated” by Iranian counterparts in talks to end the war. The US president responded by announcing a troop withdrawal from Germany.
Wolf Osthaus, global affairs director for Netflix in Germany, said the investment clause in the draft legislation would risk the economic viability of bigger film projects.
“If regulation ultimately makes it harder to invest in ambitious projects and, as a result, fewer titles are produced overall, that benefits neither audiences nor the production location,” Osthaus said in a statement.
