Furious Trump walks away from Canada trade talks
Donald Trump has walked away from trade talks with Canada in response to a digital services tax he described as a 'blatant attack on our country'.
The president said he had immediately ended discussions taking place to address the series of tariffs he placed on the country earlier this year.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump said his administration had been informed that Canada was planning to proceed with a three per cent tax on technology companies such as Meta, Uber, Amazon and Google, on revenue earned from Canadian customers.
Because the tax is retroactive, the American companies could face a bill of as much as $2bn by the end of the month.
On Thursday, Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, said the Group of Seven nations would put a pause on the taxes for US tech companies. In exchange, he said Republicans in Congress were planning to halt a so-called revenge tax on foreign investors.
'Based on this egregious tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on trade with Canada, effective immediately,' Mr Trump wrote. '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.'
Canada is the US's second biggest trading partner after Mexico, and bought around $350bn (£255) worth of American goods last year, according to official data. In exchange, it exported $412bn (£300) of goods.
Canadians were stunned when Mr Trump announced major tariffs on its northern neighbour, as well as Mexico. Canada hit back at the 25 per cent levy on steel and aluminium, with a similar tariff on a range of US items.
Mark Carney has said the trading relationship between the two countries had been changed forever.
Anger over the tariffs was one of the reasons Mr Carney's beleaguered Liberal Party was re-elected, despite being poised to lose to the Conservative Party in a general election in May.
Mr Carney who previously led both the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, took a hard line against the US president as he continued to make '51st state' jibes.
There was no immediate response from Mr Carney's office on Friday's development.
It comes as Mr Trump's government is set to reimpose a number of high tariffs that he announced in April on almost all of America's trading partners.
Of those nations, only two countries, Britain and China, have agreements with the US to even a framework of a trade deal.
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