Donald Trump is ending trade talks with Canada after America’s northern neighbor imposed a digital services tax on U.S. technology companies.
The retaliatory duty amounted to a “direct and blatant attack on our Country,” according to Trump—though he did not elaborate on whether that meant his own tariff plan also constituted an attack on countries around the globe.
The president accused Canada of “copying” the European Union, which similarly imposed a tax on some of the biggest U.S. companies providing digital services, including Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft.
“Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday. “We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”
But the White House does not appear eager to organize its trade plan that has nauseated American markets for more than two months. The White House said Thursday that the deadline for countries to strike trade deals with the U.S. may be extended past July 9, a deadline that press secretary Karoline Leavitt described as “not critical.”
And in May, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick let slip that he believes reciprocity—or the idea of bringing tariffs between two countries to zero—would be the “silliest thing we could do.”
Trump’s tariff proposals haven’t won the U.S. too much negotiating ground. Instead, countries around the world began observing that—rather than playing the waiting game to meet with the White House over potential trade relief—China’s tough negotiating strategy with the former real estate mogul had actually gotten the Eastern powerhouse a significantly better deal.
In the end, it will be Americans who pay the price when the Trump administration runs out of time on its “90 deals in 90 days” promise. On Tuesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that the central bank would wait to see the residual impacts of the country’s new tariff plan before reducing its key interest rate, as companies have already decided to increase product prices this year in reaction to hampered global supply chains.
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