From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

Donald Trump made the announcement Friday, citing frustration with Canadian tariffs on U.S. dairy products and its newly-enacted digital services tax.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday an immediate halt to trade negotiations with Canada, citing frustration with Canadian tariffs on U.S. dairy products and its newly-enacted digital services tax.

Starting June 28, Canada’s digital services tax imposes a 3 percent tax on revenue from “[c]ertain digital services that rely on engagement, data, and content contributions of Canadian users” and “[c]ertain sales or licensing of Canadian user data.”

The Albany Times Union notes that the tax would apply to companies such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber, and Airbnb, but most critically from an American perspective “will apply retroactively, leaving U.S. companies with a $2 billion U.S. bill due at the end of the month.”

On Friday afternoon, Trump took to Truth Social to declare, “We have just been informed that Canada, a very difficult Country to TRADE with, including the fact that they have charged our Farmers as much as 400% Tariffs, for years, on Dairy Products, has just announced that they are putting a Digital Services Tax on our American Technology Companies, which is a direct and blatant attack on our Country.”

“They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also,” the president continued. “Based 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. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

🚨 HUGE: Trump announces IMMEDIATE END to trade negotiations with Canada’s. Tariffs to be announced within 7 days.
📸 Screenshot says it all 👇 pic.twitter.com/v0SefdB2MM

— John-Henry Westen (@JhWesten) June 27, 2025

The United States currently imposes a 25 percent tariff on goods deemed not compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the trade agreement Trump negotiated in his first term to replace NAFTA; a 10 percent tariff on USMCA non-compliant energy products; and a 10 percent tariff on USMCA non-compliant potash.

Politico reports that Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had previously set a July 16 deadline for a new trade agreement, under which it was hoped that existing tariffs would be lifted. Instead, onlookers are now bracing to see what new tariff rates will be.

The tariffs on Canada are part of the Trump administration’s broader series of varying tariffs on most other nations (which have been adjusted, lifted, and delayed at various points over the past several months). Supporters say the trade war is necessary to make international trade fairer and spur a return of domestic manufacturing; opponents argue they increase costs on American consumers and small businesses.

By Dan McTeague

Earlier this month, Donald Trump fulfilled a major campaign promise and struck a blow against environmentalist governance in Canada, all in one fell swoop.

He did this by signing a congressional resolution revoking a waiver granted to California by the Biden Administration that enabled the state to set automotive emissions standards significantly stricter than the national standard. So strict, in fact, that in practice only electric vehicles (EVs) could realistically meet them.

This waiver functioned as a backdoor EV mandate, not just in California, but for all of the United States. That’s because automakers don’t want to be locked out of the most populous state in the union but are also disinclined to build one set of cars for California and another for the rest of the country. Their only option would be to increase their production of EVs, to the exclusion of gas-and-diesel internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.

Trump has argued, both during his 2024 campaign and since, that the waiver enabled far-left California to saddle the rest of the country with environmental policies it had never voted for and couldn’t repeal. That view helped him win back the White House.

But what does this have to do with Canada? Donald Trump has no power over our own EV mandate. The law of the land in Canada, though it was barely discussed in this spring’s federal election, beyond a last-minute pledge from Pierre Poilievre to reverse it, is still that by 2035, 100 per cent of new light-duty vehicles sold in Canada (including passenger cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs) must be electric.

It doesn’t sound like Mark Carney’s Liberals have any intention of changing course from this Trudeau-era policy — even though new EVs sold in Canada have been falling as a share of overall purchases. To stay on track for 2035, the mandate stipulates, 20 per cent of new cars sold in Canada next year must be EVs. Last year just 13.7 per cent were. And, as Tristin Hopper noted recently, “these sales are disproportionately concentrated in a single province … Of the 81,205 zero-emission vehicles sold in Canada in the last quarter of 2024, 49,357 were sold in Quebec.”

That doesn’t bode well for a national mandate. And Trump’s move further complicates the Liberals’ EV mandate, which has always been presented as an investment opportunity as well as a chance to reduce global carbon emissions. Our federal and provincial governments (particularly Ontario and Quebec) have bet very big on EVs dominating the future. Last year, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated that public investment in EVs exceeded $52 billion. Much of that money has gone towards subsidizing the manufacture of EVs in Canada.

Except there just aren’t enough Canadian consumers to justify that expense. The scheme has always hinged on there being a robust EV market south of the border. The Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association reminds us that “vehicles are the second largest Canadian export by value, at $51 billion in 2023, of which 93 per cent was exported to the U.S.”

The assumption was that existing avenues of trade would remain essentially unchanged. Even leaving aside concerns about what our future trade relationship with the United States will be, the end of America’s backdoor mandate — and with it, any reason to believe there will be a serious market for EVs in the U.S. — exposes our current EV policies as a bum deal.

Of course, there was never a strong case for attempting to turn Canada into a global EV superpower. There’s a reason Canadian consumers remain skeptical of them. EV batteries don’t perform well in the frigid temperatures for which our country is famous. In cold weather, they charge slowly and then struggle to hold the charge.

Our already-stressed electrical grid isn’t ready for the extra demand that would come with widespread EV adoption, especially considering the Liberals’ desire to progressively decarbonize the grid. And we have nothing like the infrastructure we would need to support this transition.

These roadblocks have now become so obvious that even the automakers, the main beneficiaries of both taxpayer-funded largesse and the mandates themselves, have started saying so. “The fact is these EV sales mandates were never achievable,” read a recent statement by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents Toyota, GM, Volkswagen, and Stellantis. Ford Canada CEO Bev Goodman has described the mandate as unrealistic and called for its repeal. Kristian Aquilina, president of GM Canada, has said the same.

Whether they realize it or not, our political leaders will have to face up to this reality, and sooner rather than later. Their best option is also the most straightforward one. There’s no reason for us to keep throwing good money after bad money, nor to force an unwanted product on Canadian consumers.

You can do it, Mr. Carney. Repeal the EV mandate.