So Canada wants to pick a tax fight?

American Thinker ^ | 30 Jun, 2025 | Silvio Canto, Jr.

[MtnClimber]

As a Canadian friend told me after the church on Sunday, his compatriots up north need to start thinking about their country and less about hating Trump. It seems that the Canadian version of Trump Derangement Syndrome is alive and well up there. The latest involves President Trump stopping negotiations over a tax. Here is the story:

President Donald Trump on Friday said the United States is immediately “terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada” in response to Ottawa’s decision to impose a digital services tax on American tech firms.

Trump’s surprise announcement on Truth Social accused Canada of “copying the European Union” with the “egregious” tax.

“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 added.

A digital service tax? Why? What local version of a digital service company is it protecting? Furthermore, this tax is inspired by the Europeans? Really? Canada wants to copy the Europeans?

So let's hope that the Carney government comes to its senses and realizes that trade with the U.S. is more important than copying whatever Europe does. Also, there is the whole question of defending Canada, a pretty good deal that our friends up north enjoy. Who protects their airspace and massive coastlines? It's not the underfunded Canadian armed forces. It's not the Europeans either because they've been protected by the U.S. for a long time.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: leftism

[MtnClimber]

If it moves, tax it.

[spincaster]

They don’t call them cheese heads for nothing.

[SharpRightTurn]

Carney is already a disaster, and he’s just getting started.

[HYPOCRACY]

“Really? Canada wants to copy the Europeans?”

Lol. Carney is European.

[Flavious_Maximus]

Carney is in fact a carny (a sideshow carnival barker).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carny

[albie]

Any relation to Art Carney? (Ed on The Honeymooners)

[FreedomPoster]

Wut

That’s Wisconsin.

[Ahithophel]

Old news; Canada has since blinked.

[Tell It Right]

Canada is desperate to fund their socialized “free” healthcare Ponzi scheme.

[V_TWIN]

Looks like the Canucks are already moonwalking 👇

“Canada abruptly scraps digital services tax targeting US technology firms days after Trump ripped ‘foolish’ move”

https://nypost.com/2025/06/30/us-news/canada-rescinds-digital-services-tax-targeting-us-technology-firms-to-advance-stalled-trade-talks/

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

A DST isn’t a tarrif. It’s an internal tax that all digital services have to pay on economic activity within the country. This should not be a trade issue.

Regardless of what you think of the tax, every country has the right to tax economic activity within its own borders.

[napscoordinator]

Old news.

[Sicon]

Canada’s GDP: $2.14 trillion

U.S. GDP: $27.72 trillion

Carney is an idiot (and maybe an actual carny).

[Redleg Duke]

” They don’t call them cheese heads for nothing.”

Cheeseheads are from Wisconsin. About the only thing Canadians and Badgers have in common is ice hockey.

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

“Regardless of what you think of the tax, every country has the right to tax economic activity within its own borders.”

And we have the right not to do business with a tyrannical regime that wants to tax our businesses. Or to tax them back even heavier.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Except, it’s the consumer who pays the tax in the end, and it’s unlikely that a 3% tax is going to be the difference between people using a service or not. It is like VAT or a sales tax, it confers no advantage on domestic providers. It is totally stupid to make an issue of this, it is a matter for the local electorate alone to approve of.

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

But it’s Canadian.

[faucetman]

F canada. You don’t have ANYTHING I NEED. You don’t have ANYTHING I WANT.

You are a YUGE country with nobody in it.

In 2024 the population of Canada was estimated to be 40,784,365 (Q1, 2024) while the population of the United States was estimated to 339,268,209 in Q1 2024, more than eight times larger than Canada.

EIGHT TIMES LARGER! You are just another one of those shithole countries. You don’t MATTER!

[Dr. Sivana]

A digital service tax? Why?

If I wanted to argue the Canadian side, it would be related to the dominance of U.S. headquartered company dominating digital services in Canada (ever since the death of Blackberry).

So, just as we charge tariffs on Chinese goods because they are displacing U.S. production of same product, Canada could be wanting to encourage home grown (or at least Canadian subsidiaries) of technical services, rather than having all the money go the U.S.

Tariffs can get very complex. For instance, we might complain about a 400% tariff on U.S. cheeses, but the U.S. does not even ALLOW the sale of unpasteurized Canadian and French cheeses.

Japan's 700% tariff on rice is truly protectionism. It doesn't kick in until a ceiling is hit, so the first 350,000 tons of rice from the U.S. are imported tariff free. Other countries have similar arrangements. Japan is a smallish island country, and if foreigners flooded the market with cheap rice, a simple blockade could starve the country in short order. Japan is protecting an essential part of being Japan.

Getting back to Canada, the dominance of U.S. cultural exports (NOT something we should be proud of, for the most part), makes Canadians jittery, which is why broadcast venues have a requirement that 35% or more of content must be Canadian. And that's how we got stuck with Caillou, that whiny brat.