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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump Bullied Canada Over 'Digital Taxes'
Joseph Stiglitz
The Guardian July 8, 2025
The question now: will countries cave in to these threats or stick together and collect the billions they are rightly owed?
Donald Trumps announcement calling off trade talks with Canada over its digital tax and that he would impose retaliatory tariffs demonstrates, once again, not only the presidents ignorance of economics and willful disregard of international norms and the rule of law, but also his willingness to use brute power to get whatever he and the oligarchs who support him want.
He was wrong in labeling the tax as outrageous and a direct and blatant attack on our country. It is actually an efficient tax, well designed to ensure that the technology companies the profits of which benefit the tech oligarchs who have come to dominate US policy pay their fair share of taxes.
It is accordingly disappointing that Canada appears to have caved, even more so as the prime minister had stood up strongly against Trumps demand for Canada to become the 51st state. Regrettably, others are giving in New Zealand and India have reportedly retreated.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/08/trump-bullied-canada-over-digital-taxes-and-ottawa-submitted
Bio: Joseph E. Stiglitz is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is also the co-chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD, and the Chief Economist of the Roosevelt Institute. Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001 and the John Bates Clark Medal in 1979. He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank and a former chair of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers.
In 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, a think tank on international development based at Columbia University. In 2011 Stiglitz was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Known for his pioneering work on asymmetric information, Stiglitz's research focuses on income distribution, climate change, corporate governance, public policy, macroeconomics and globalization. He is the author of numerous books including, most recently, People, Power, and Profits, Rewriting the Rules of the European Economy, and Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited.
https://business.columbia.edu/stiglitz/about

WSHazel
(537 posts)Canada created a negotiating pawn out of thin air to trade to Trump for something Canada actually wanted. Trump is the worst negotiator on the planet, and is exactly the kind of person that would fall for this tactic.
Disaffected
(5,766 posts)The third paragraph explains the tax accurately IMO.
WSHazel
(537 posts)For that to be true, then Canada's entire leadership had to be complete morons. Since I don't think they are, they knew that this tax would make Trump's Tech Bro friends go running to him demanding it be taken down. Which gave Canada leverage.
Trump is the easiest mark there can be in a negotiation. Flatter him, give him one or more useless concessions that you know you were never going to get anyway, and you can improve your deal with him dramatically.