President Donald Trump said the U.S. is ending trade talks with Canada, effective immediately, and taxing digital services that will affect U.S. technology companies. He also promised to announce further tariffs on Canada next week, adding: “They will do business with the United States of America.”
Canada’s Digital Services Tax (DST) is scheduled to come into effect on June 30, although it will be applied retroactively. according to U.S. companies are preparing to pay the Canadian government about $2.7 billion to pay a tax of 3% of its revenue generated from users in the country. If everything is available, companies including Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb will be subject to tax.
Trump called the DST a “direct and blatant attack on our country” in his post on Friday. The country held this month during trade talks with the U.S., Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne. Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney had previously aimed to reach a trade deal around July 20.
Since taking office in January, Trump has used tariffs as a negotiating strategy with other countries. The United States, which is mineralized with China this week, will soon re-issue some taxes.
DST has been the skeleton of debate between the United States and Canada for years. The Biden administration imposed taxes last year under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement.
Similar taxes have been considered or enacted in other jurisdictions. Germany was reportedly on platforms such as Google and Facebook in May.
