The US maintains the tax plans would breach international treaties by specifically targeting US firms.
The report said the US government tended to support major American corporations abroad, regardless of which party held the White House. The influence of major players is likely to rise during a Biden presidency.
The big shock of Biden’s foreign policy is likely to be his administration’s strong support for big tech,” Professor Barbones said.
“The Australian government plans to force Google and Facebook to pay for posting news snippets, but Google and Facebook were among Biden’s biggest campaign supporters and have placed executives on his transition team.
Netflix and Disney+ are also likely to ask Biden to pressure Australia not to impose local content rules.
So far Australia is not particularly on the radar of the Biden transition team, a situation likely to change, according to the report.
Biden has repeatedly stressed his commitment to working ‘with’ allies to achieve American goals, not made commitments ‘to’ allies to help them with their own challenges, Professor Babones said.
Australia benefits most when it is ignored by the United States; the greatest threat to Australia is that Biden will finally give it the attention it craves.”
This week the Trump administration this week urged the Morrison government to drop the plan for digital platforms to pay news publishers for content in Australia.
Warning the proposal was unreasonable and “fundamentally imbalanced”, the United States told a federal parliamentary inquiry a voluntary code would be preferable.
But a voluntary code was rejected by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg last year, on the basis of the huge market power of the digital giants. Mr Frydenberg said the threat of the final arbitration system would help force Facebook and Google to the negotiating table with news organisations.
Facebooks Instagram and Googles YouTube will both be excluded from the new digital platform rules governing their interaction with public interest news organisations, but public broadcasters the ABC and SBS will be included.
Under the mandatory bargaining code, if the parties fail to strike a financial deal an auction system similar to schemes used by American baseball teams in player pay disputes would be overseen by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
The companies will face a Senate committee considering the legislation on Friday.
Last week Google began tweaking its search and news algorithm to bury links from commercial Australian media outlets for some users, moves it said were part of an “experiment”.