Retaliatory taxes on foreign companies operating in the U.S. could open the door for a broader economic conflict.

Proposed IRC Sec 899 in the House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would impose escalating tax penalties on foreigners from countries with unfair taxes on U.S. persons.

In response, ChatGPT summed up the livestream's reaction as "mildly negative," saying: "The frequency of most words is low due to the wide variety of unique phrases and proper nouns. However, vote and no appear repeatedly, indicating a strong theme of opposition or protest."

The poorest fifth of Americans would receive 1 percent of the House reconciliation bill's net tax cuts in 2026 while the richest fifth of Americans would receive two-thirds of the tax cuts. The richest 5 percent alone would receive a little less than half of the net tax cuts that year.

The call by US lawmakers to impose new retaliatory taxes on foreign-owned companies is a strategic move to give the Trump administration leverage to shield American companies from the global minimum tax framework.

The president’s efforts to rewrite the DNA of global commerce could complicate the fate of his “Big, Beautiful Bill,” either by diverting the president’s energy or by inviting lawmakers to make changes to the legislation to address unhappiness from the markets and the public.

It turns out that all of those "no" votes in committee didn’t amount to much once the tax bill hit the House floor on Thursday morning.