WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says the U.S. will immediately terminate trade talks with Canada and also hit the neighboring country with a new tariff rate in the next week.
Trump in a post on Truth Social cited a decision by Canada to leave in place its digital services tax on American companies, which he cast as as “a direct and blatant attack” on the United States.
“Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” Trump said. “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.”
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The announcement came after a White House press conference where Trump presented an ambiguous timeline for reciprocal tariffs he put on most other nations to go into effect. Trump introduced the tariffs in April and then paused them. If no further action is taken, they will resume on July 9. Trump’s administration was separately working on deals with Canada, Mexico and China.
At the June 27 news conference, Trump said his administration would soon send out letters to U.S. trading partners informing them of their tariff rate.
“Maybe before, we’re going to send out a letter,” he told reporters. “We talked to many of the countries ,and we’re just going to tell them what they have to pay to do business in United States.”
Trump signaled later that countries could be facing an even shorter timeline to avoid potentially higher tariff rates.
“We can do whatever we want. We could extend it. We could make it shorter. I would like to make it shorter. I’d like to just send letters out to everybody,” Trump said in the previously-unscheduled White House news conference.
The president also lashed out at economists who predicted his administration’s tariffs could cause a recession. He said they should “go back to business school,” while defending his second-term levies.
“We’re taking in billions and billions of dollars from China and a lot of other countries,” Trump added.
Trump unveiled a slew of country-specific tariffs that roiled economic markets in April, but paused many of them as he negotiated trade deals and later lowered steep tariffs on China. Markets have since recovered. Stocks rose on June 27, after the administration said it had solidified an agreement with Beijing, then fell after his social media post on Canada.
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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick boosted investor confidence when he said on June 26 that a framework agreement between the U.S. and Canada had been finalized and the administration was close to reaching deals with 10 nations.
His comments came after Trump said at an East Room event “we just signed with China yesterday.” The White House later clarified that he was referring to an adjustment to an earlier framework that would expedite shipments of rare earth materials to the United States.
Trump counted China on June 27 in a tally of countries he said he’d made deals with, including the United Kingdom. The president also predicted a deal would come about soon with India.
The latest round of talks between the European Union and the United States wrapped up not long before Trump addressed reporters. EU commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maroš Šefčovič said in a social media post that he’d just spoken to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
Trump threatened in May to put a 50% tariff on the EU before returning to the July 9 deadline.
Contributing: Zac Anderson
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump ends trade talks with Canada, says US could move other deadlines
