White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Monday that U.S.-Canada trade talks will resume immediately, following Ottawa’s move to cancel its digital services tax (DST).
Hassett was asked on Fox News if the Trump administration will restart negotiations with Canada after the country walked back on imposing the tax and he replied, “oh, absolutely.”
He added that President Trump asked Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the Group of Seven (G-7) meeting earlier this month to “take the DST tax off.”
“It’s something that they’ve studied, now they’ve agreed to. And for sure, that means that we can get back to the negotiations,” Hassett said.
Trump said Friday he was suspending trade talks with Canada after its government confirmed it was planning to keep in place a digital services tax despite the recent G-7 agreement on such levies. The president added at the time that he would announce within a week a higher tariff rate on the neighboring country.
“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!,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week.
Canada then walked back its digital services tax on Sunday night, just before it was set to require the first payment of its tech tax, which would have charged 3 percent of revenues above $14.57 million, or 20 million Canadian dollars. Digital services taxes are taxes on tech companies from countries where their products are used.