Washington (dpa) — US President Donald Trump is cancelling “all” trade talks with Canada and threatening its northern neighbour with new tariffs.
“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,” he wrote Friday in a social media post.
Trump cited Canada’s planned introduction of a digital tax on the business of US companies as the reason for cancelling the trade talks.
This was “a direct and blatant attack on our country,” Trump continued. Canada is “obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us.”
The Canadian government introduced a new digital tax (DST) a year ago, while former US president Joe Biden was still in office. The DST reportedly obliges large domestic and foreign companies to pay a 3% tax on certain sales generated by online users in Canada.
With this approach, Canada aims to ensure that digital companies are taxed where they make a profit – in this case in its US neighbour.
The United States is by far Canada’s most important trading partner.
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