Trade discussions between Canada and the United States will end “until such time as they drop certain taxes,” U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast, repeating his position after Prime Minister Mark Carney said the Canadian government would continue dialogue.
Trump’s comment was made during an interview on the Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” program on June 29.
The U.S. president in a Truth Social post on June 27 announced he was ending all trade negotiations with Canada, saying that Canada’s plan to impose a Digital Services Tax (DST) would impact U.S. tech companies.
“Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating all discussions on trade with Canada, effective immediately,” Trump said. “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.”
Trump said Canada was “obviously copying” the European Union, which imposes the same tax, and added that Canada has been a “very difficult country” to trade with.
Carney’s office, in a June 27 statement to media, said in response that the Canadian government will continue to “engage in these complex negotiations with the United States in the best interests of Canadian workers and businesses.”
Trump told reporters in the White House on June 27 that Ottawa could remove the “very severe” DST to change his mind.
“They were foolish to do it, so I said, ‘we’re gonna stop all negotiations with Canada right now until they straighten out their act,” Trump said.
About two weeks earlier, at the G7 summit in Alberta, Carney and Trump had agreed to reach a trade deal within 30 days.
“We agreed to pursue negotiations toward a deal within the coming 30 days,” Carney said in a June 16 social media post. “I’m looking forward to continuing this work at this summit and in the weeks ahead.”
Digital Services Tax
The DST, a 3 percent levy on revenue from digital services provided to Canadian users, mainly applies to businesses such as Amazon, Netflix, Google, and Airbnb. The tax takes effect on June 30 and is retroactive to 2022 for U.S. companies.
By Olivia Gomm
