President, Donald Trump, announced on Friday, June 27, ending commercial negotiations with his Canadian neighbor, judging that the tax decided by Ottawa on digital giants is a “Direct and obvious blow” worn in the United States. “Due to this scandalous tax, we put an end to all commercial discussions with Canada, with immediate effect”wrote the Head of State on his Truth Social platform.
“We will announce to Canada within seven days the customs duties they will have to pay to do business with the United States of America”Trump added. Canada has set up a tax on digital services last year, which targets American digital giants Google, Apple, Meta (Facebook), Amazon or Microsoft. They are accused of taking advantage of the intangible nature of their activity to escape tax.
This tax on digital services should start to be collected by Ottawa on June 30. It is targeting tech giants that generate annual global turnover greater than $ 1.1 billion Canadian, and who earn annual revenues in Canada over 20 million Canadian dollars.
Pending the culmination of international negotiations
The American president also criticizes the European Union for having implemented such a tax, and makes it a lever for negotiation in commercial discussions with the European block. The threat of new customs duties on Canadian products imported into the United States has been involved while Canada has been submitted, since the return to power of Donald Trump in January, to a special regime.
It is struck by part of the new customs duties, but some of its exports are in a way always protected by its free trade agreement with the United States and Mexico. According to the governments implementing them, taxes on digital services are provisional, pending the culmination of international negotiations on the taxation of multinationals.
