President Donald Trump threatened U.S.-Canada trade talks on Friday over the northern nation’s digital services tax, which required foreign and domestic large businesses such as Netflix, Amazon.com’s Prime Video, and Spotify to pay a levy of 3% on revenue earned from offering online services to users in Canada.
“We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country,” Trump noted in a Truth Social post.
“They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also,” continued the president. “Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately.”
‘Canada is a very tough country to deal with.’
Canada — the top buyer of American goods, importing $349.4 billion last year, and 75.9% of whose total exports went to the U.S. — made abundantly clear that it wasn’t too attached to the tax, which the Parliamentary Budget Office