Trump says US ending trade discussions with Canada over digital tax

The Star

US President Donald Trump said on June 27 that the US is immediately ending trade talks with Canada in response to the country's digital services tax on technology companies, calling it a "direct and blatant attack" on the United States.  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

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00:00The U.S. administration on Friday said they are immediately putting an end to their trade

00:06talks with Canada over the digital services tax imposed on American tech companies.

00:12U.S. President Donald Trump said on his social media post that they will be informing Canada

00:17of the tariff their neighbor will be paying to do business with America in the next seven days.

00:23Trump later told reporters during an event related to the Rwanda-Congo peace deal at the White House

00:28that Canada has been difficult to deal with for the U.S. for years.

00:32We have a great relationship with the people of Canada, but it's been very difficult.

00:36And they put a charge in there. We're a little bit early. We found out about it.

00:41And we have all the cards. We have every single one. We don't want to do anything bad.

00:45But economically, we have such power over Canada. I'd rather not use it.

00:53But they did something with our tech companies today trying to copy Europe.

00:57You know, they copied Europe. It's not going to work out well for Europe either.

01:01And it's not going to work out well for Canada. They were foolish to do it.

01:05So I said, we're going to stop all negotiations with Canada right now until they straighten out their act.

01:11They do most of their businesses with us. And when you have that circumstance, you treat people better.

01:17They've had farmers that are getting like 300%, 400%, 200% in tariffs. Nobody's ever seen anything like it.

01:26We have cases. You don't read this and the people don't report.

01:29But they charge us 400% on some dairy products. 400%. Nobody writes that.

01:38It's not fair to our farmers. And we've got to protect our farmers.

01:42Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada and the U.S. will continue with their complex negotiations.

01:49We conduct these complex negotiations in the best interest of Canadians. It's a negotiation.

01:54The move plunges U.S.-Canada relations back into chaos after a period of relative calm

02:00that included a cordial G7 meeting in mid-June, where both sides agreed to wrap up a new economic agreement within 30 days.

02:09Canada is the second-largest trading partner for the U.S.

02:13It bought US$349.4 billion of American goods last year and exported US$412.7 billion worth of goods to the U.S.

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