{"id":20863,"date":"2025-06-28T04:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T04:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/20863\/"},"modified":"2025-06-28T04:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T04:14:11","slug":"amazon-google-meta-and-uber-hit-with-2-billion-retroactive-tax-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/20863\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon, Google, Meta, and Uber hit with $2 billion retroactive tax bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump said Friday that he\u2019s suspending\u00a0trade talks with Canada<\/a>\u00a0over its plans to continue with its tax on technology firms, which he called \u201ca direct and blatant attack on our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, in a post on his social media network, said Canada had just informed the U.S. that it was sticking to its plan to impose the digital services tax, which applies to Canadian and foreign businesses that engage with online users in Canada. The tax is set to go into effect Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. 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,\u201d Trump said in his post.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s announcement was the latest swerve in\u00a0the trade war<\/a>\u00a0he\u2019s launched since taking office for a second term in January. Progress with Canada has been a roller coaster, starting with the U.S. president poking at the nation\u2019s northern neighbor and repeatedly suggesting it would be absorbed as\u00a0a U.S. state<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday that his country would \u201ccontinue to conduct these complex negotiations in the best interests of Canadians. It\u2019s a negotiation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump later said he expects that Canada will remove the tax.<\/p>\n

\u201cEconomically we have such power over Canada. We\u2019d rather not use it,\u201d Trump said in the Oval Office. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to work out well for Canada. They were foolish to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if Canada could do anything to restart talks, he suggested Canada could remove the tax, predicted it will but said, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carney\u00a0visited Trump<\/a>\u00a0in May at the White House, where he was polite but firm. Trump last week traveled to Canada for\u00a0the G7 summit<\/a>\u00a0in Alberta, where Carney said that Canada and the U.S. had set a 30-day deadline for trade talks.<\/p>\n

The digital services tax will hit companies including Amazon<\/a>, Google<\/a>, Meta<\/a>, Uber and Airbnb<\/a> with a 3% levy on revenue from Canadian users. It will apply retroactively, leaving U.S. companies with a $2 billion U.S. bill due at the end of the month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate the Administration\u2019s decisive response to Canada\u2019s discriminatory tax on U.S. digital exports,\u201d Matt Schruers, chief executive of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Canada and the U.S. have been discussing easing\u00a0a series of steep tariffs Trump imposed<\/a>\u00a0on goods from America\u2019s neighbor.<\/p>\n

The Republican president earlier told reporters that the U.S. was soon preparing to send letters to different countries, informing them of the new tariff rate his administration would impose on them.<\/p>\n

Trump has imposed 50% tariffs on\u00a0steel and aluminum<\/a>\u00a0as well as 25% tariffs on autos. He is also charging a 10% tax on imports from most countries, though he could raise rates on July 9, after the 90-day negotiating period he set would expire.<\/p>\n

Canada and Mexico face separate tariffs of as much as 25% that Trump put into place under the auspices of stopping fentanyl smuggling, though some products are still protected under the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement signed during Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n

Addressing reporters after a private meeting with Republican senators Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declined to comment on news that Trump had ended trade talks with Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in the meeting,\u201d Bessent said before moving on to the next question.<\/p>\n

About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports as well.<\/p>\n

Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager to obtain.<\/p>\n

About 80% of Canada\u2019s exports go to the U.S.<\/p>\n

Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said it is a domestic tax issue, but it has been a source of tensions between Canada and the United States for a while because it targets U.S. tech giants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Digital Services Tax Act was signed into law a year ago so the advent of this new tax has been known for a long time,\u201d Beland said. \u201cYet, President Trump waited just before its implementation to create drama over it in the context of ongoing and highly uncertain trade negotiations between the two countries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump said Friday that he\u2019s suspending\u00a0trade talks with Canada\u00a0over its plans to continue with its tax…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2147,69,50,2175,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-20863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-tariffs","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114759051765761337","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}