'51st state': Trump teases annexation again after Canada quickly caves on major tax
President Donald Trump threatened U.S.-Canada trade talks on Friday over the northern nation's digital services tax, which required foreign and domestic large businesses such as Netflix, Amazon.com's Prime Video, and Spotify to pay a levy of 3% on revenue earned from offering online services to users in Canada.
"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," Trump noted in a Truth Social post.
"They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us, also," continued the president. "Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately."
'Canada is a very tough country to deal with.'
Canada — the top buyer of American goods, importing $349.4 billion last year, and 75.9% of whose total exports went to the U.S. — made abundantly clear that it wasn't too attached to the tax, which the Parliamentary Budget Office estimated would increase federal government revenues by over $5.2 billion over five years.
Within hours of Trump's post, the Department of Finance Canada announced that it was rescinding the digital services tax to advance broader trade negotiations with the United States.
Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne noted that "rescinding the DST will allow the negotiations to make vital progress and reinforce our work to create jobs and build prosperity for all Canadians."
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick thanked Canada on Monday for removing the tax, noting that it was "intended to stifle American innovation and would have been a deal breaker for any trade deal with America."
RELATED: Canada's solution to reliance on US? Increasing commitments in Europe
"In our negotiations on a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the United States, Canada's new government will always be guided by the overall contribution of any possible agreement to the best interests of Canadian workers and businesses," said Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. "Today’s announcement will support a resumption of negotiations toward the July 21, 2025, timeline set out at this month’s G7 Leaders’ Summit in Kananaskis."
The Canadian Liberal Party under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first promised the tax ahead of the 2019 federal election, saying it would "make sure that multinational tech giants pay corporate tax on the revenue they generate in Canada," even though critics indicated that Canadian consumers would end up paying the taxes.
The Digital Services Tax Act went into force on June 28, 2024, prompting condemnation stateside as well as an official complaint under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement from former U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
John Dickerman, vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based Business Council of Canada, suggested to Canadian state media days after Trump's re-election that the tax was likely doomed.
"The first Trump administration ... was very clear on digital services taxes. They believed that digital services taxes were a very clear indication that a country was specifically targeting the U.S. and targeting U.S. companies. It will be a 'with us and against us' scenario," said Dickerman. "I think there will be very little room for negotiation on DST."
Trump leaned on Canada to axe the tax just in the nick of time. The first payments were due on Monday and retroactive to 2022, meaning a number of American corporations were on the hook for billions of dollars.
The Canadian government indicated that Carney and Trump have agreed to resume negotiations "with a view towards agreeing on a deal by July 21, 2025."
"Canada is a very tough country to deal with, I will say that," Trump told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures." "Hopefully we'll be fine with Canada. I love Canada. Frankly, Canada should be the 51st state."
Blaze News has reached out to the White House for comment.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
How a ‘C’ paper at Yale became a $54 billion global empire
The “C” grade FedEx founder Fred Smith received from a Yale professor on a paper outlining his vision for an overnight delivery service is much less remarkable than is often assumed. Naturally, Smith got a C. Rest assured that most investors gave him an F, assuming they bothered to hear Smith’s pitch in the first place.
Evidence supporting the above claim can be found in the billions Smith left behind, along with the market cap ($54 billion) of FedEx itself. Smith’s wealth and FedEx’s valuation are evidence of Smith’s entrepreneurial genius — his ability to see what others couldn’t, to act decisively, and to execute brilliantly on a vision that defied conventional wisdom.
At least rhetorically, Donald Trump sees interconnectivity as impoverishing. That’s too bad.
Stop and contemplate the miraculous nature of Smith’s innovation. No doubt many wished they could have next-day or two-day delivery. But as Smith’s billions yet again indicate, his greatest insight was in figuring out how to solve a problem that appeared insolvable: how to profitably move documents around the U.S. and around the world overnight. Investors didn’t believe it could be done, which is why opposite-thinking, passionate people like Smith are so crucial to progress.
Which brings us to economist Joseph Schumpeter’s notion of “creative destruction.” It was his way of saying that great business ideas are routinely replaced by even better ones. Stasis is death in business.
Adapt or die
Smith knew this well. Miraculous as overnight delivery was, the proliferation of fax machines in the 1970s and '80s could have been an existential threat to FedEx. Same with email, PDF attachments, hyperlinks, and eventually DocuSign in the 1990s and beyond.
The easy move would have been to sell or shut down what technology was rapidly rendering dated — but that wasn’t Smith. A free thinker to the core, according to people like Cato Institute co-founder Ed Crane (Smith served on Cato’s board), who knew him well, Smith no doubt grasped that a world increasingly connected by split-second technology would be a prosperous one. And prosperous people don’t just want market goods — they want them quickly.
RELATED: The tax trick pitting old-guard Republicans against the populist new right
While many entrepreneurs might have sold in the face of a technological onslaught, Smith kept on building. He pivoted his business to become more valuable — ironically, the more free-market forces rendered FedEx’s initial purpose dated and obsolete. Documents were to FedEx what books were to Amazon: just the test case for a business concept that would have even greater purpose the more the world thrived based on the connectivity that had, in so many ways, vitiated FedEx’s original business.
Smith’s lesson for Trump
The free, rapid movement of people and communications was only existential for Smith and FedEx insofar as he was unwilling to pivot. In other words, the free trade that Smith venerated didn’t victimize him or, for that matter, any entrepreneur capable of seeing that prosperity born out of open trade frequently creates even better lines for businesses to expand into. That’s why FedEx didn’t die long ago. Smith was too smart — not just for Schumpeter, but also for President Donald Trump.
At least rhetorically, Trump sees interconnectivity as impoverishing. That’s too bad. As Smith’s towering achievements indicate, the only true barriers to prosperity are those that separate producers from one another.
It’s a long way of saying Trump could learn from Smith’s constant evasion of creative destruction. The latter isn’t just an understatement — it’s also urgent.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearMarkets and made available via RealClearWire.
Corporate giant reshores jobs, invests nearly $500 million, thanks to Trump
President Donald Trump's trade policy appears to have helped set the stage for a corporate giant to invest nearly half a billion dollars in Kentucky. However, the state's tariff-averse Democratic governor appears happy to localize all the credit.
GE Appliances announced on Thursday a $490 million investment at its Louisville headquarters "to create its most advanced manufacturing plant for production of clothes washers."
'The tariffs — do they make the benefits better?'
The company, a subsidiary of the China-based Haier Group, plans to reshore production of clothes washers and dryers, create 800 new full-time jobs, and cement "Kentucky's position as a global hub for advanced appliance manufacturing."
"We are bringing laundry production to our global headquarters in Louisville because manufacturing in the U.S. is fundamental to our 'zero-distance' business strategy to make appliances as close as possible to our customers and consumers," said GE Appliances CEO Kevin Nolan.
The total area of clothes care production at Appliance Park in Louisville will reportedly end up being the equivalent of 33 football fields.
Business Wire indicated that the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority helped sweeten the deal with funds to help the company modernize its building as well as by preliminarily approving performance-based incentives under the state's business investment program and workforce training grants through the Kentucky Skills Network.
"This decision is our most recent product reshoring and aligns with the current economic and policy environment," added Nolan.
Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, a harsh critic of President Donald Trump's tariff strategy, proved unwilling during his press conference with Nolan on Thursday to credit the president with helping shape the "current economic and policy environment" that appears to have helped prompt action on the part of GE Appliances.
When asked whether the governor regards GE Appliances' announcement as a tariff win, Beshear's office simply directed Blaze News to the video of his press conference.
Whereas Beshear was silent on the matter, the liberal media rushed to insist that there was no major correlation between GE Appliances' big move and either Trump's tariffs on foreign-made goods — 10% on imports from most countries and a 30% levy on Chinese goods — or the president's demands on American companies to onshore production.
Louisville Courier Journal columnist Joseph Gerth, for instance, noted on Friday, "This investment and these jobs are not because of him. It's not because of his chaotic tariff scheme."
Nolan appeared to suggest otherwise.
The GE Appliances CEO noted that Trump's trade policy "makes the payback for these things much, much greater."
"The tariffs — do they make the benefits better? Do they make incentives better?" said the CEO, as quoted in Gerth's own article. "Of course they do."
Nolan did, however, suggest that this investment was also the result of "long-term" planning.
"You can't make a decision like this in a short-term-look environment because this is something that is going to be here ... who knows how long," said Nolan. "But a company that doesn’t have this long-term strategy right now is going to struggle to make decisions like this."
The White House did not immediately respond to Blaze News' request for comment.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
USDA exploring possibility of mass vaccinations for American poultry despite RFK Jr.'s warnings
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned earlier this year that vaccinating poultry against highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5) viruses might transform farms into incubators for mutant viruses — viruses that could potentially leap to humans.
"All of my agencies have advised against the vaccination of birds," Kennedy told Fox News' Sean Hannity, "because if you vaccinate with a leaky vaccine — in other words, a vaccine that does not provide sterilizing immunity, that does not absolutely protect against the disease — you turn those flocks into mutation factories."
"They're teaching the organism how to mutate," continued Kennedy. "And it's much more likely to jump to animals if you do that."
Despite Kennedy's concern — which is apparently shared by the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration — the U.S. Department of Agriculture is looking seriously at mass vaccinations for American poultry.
A USDA spokesperson told Blaze News that the USDA "is exploring the viability of vaccinating poultry for HPAI" but noted that the "use of any vaccine has not been authorized at this time."
This vaccine exploration appears to have taken on greater energy in February when egg prices were reaching record highs.
After flying south of $3 between 1994 and 2022, the price for a dozen eggs began to rise dramatically during the second half of the Biden era, then even higher earlier this year, reaching an all-time average high of $6.22 in March.
RELATED: The 'cage-free' myth: Why everything you think you know about ethical eggs is wrong
Although there were multiple factors at play — including the shift in various states to cage-free hens and record consumer demand — the price spikes were largely driven by the mass exterminations of commercial and backyard bird populations ordered by the USDA in response to HPAI viruses.
Blaze News previously noted that between Feb. 8, 2022 — when the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service first confirmed bird flu belonging to the clade 2.3.4.4b in an American commercial flock — and March 2025, the USDA directed the extermination of over 166.41 million birds. Fewer egg-laying birds naturally means diminished supply and higher prices.
'Vaccination in any poultry sector — egg layers, turkeys, broilers, or ducks — will jeopardize the entire export market for all U.S. poultry products.'
In a Feb. 26 op-ed, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins outlined "five steps to tackle avian flu and bring down costs for American families."
In addition to dedicating up to $500 million to help American poultry producers implement "gold-standard" biosecurity measures, increasing financial relief to farms whose flocks are affected by avian flu, removing "unnecessary regulatory burdens on egg producers where possible," and considering temporary import options, Rollins said her agency would "provide up to $100 million in research and development of vaccines and therapeutics, to improve their efficacy and efficiency."
Although egg prices have returned to relatively normal levels, a USDA spokesperson told Blaze News that the agency continues "to evaluate the potential use of vaccines."
"Before making a determination, USDA, in consultation with federal partners, will solicit feedback from state officials, veterinarians, farmers, the public health system, and the American public," said the spokesperson. "USDA is working with federal and state officials and industry stakeholders to develop a potential plan for vaccine use in the United States."
Reuters indicated that industry members anticipate that the agency will complete its plan in July.
RELATED: Cleaning up Biden’s bird flu mess falls to Trump
There is some controversy over the potential mass vaccination of poultry on the business side of the equation.
Dr. John Clifford, a former USDA chief veterinary officer who advises the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council, told Reuters that chicken meat producers would be dealt a crushing blow if importers stopped importing U.S. poultry over concerns that vaccines were masking the presence of HPAI in flocks.
Some industry groups are, however, warming up to the idea.
Although the National Chicken Council previously suggested that "vaccination in any poultry sector — egg layers, turkeys, broilers, or ducks — will jeopardize the entire export market for all U.S. poultry products," they have since suggested they are on board with the program if exports go unaffected.
The United Egg Producers are apparently even more gung-ho, having helped hatch a plan suggesting an initial vaccination for baby chicks, a subsequent booster shot, then routine testing.
Nicolas Hulscher, an epidemiologist and administrator at the McCullough Foundation, has suggested mass poultry vaccinations are unwise, telling Blaze News that Kennedy's "worries about mass animal H5N1 bird flu vaccination are fully grounded in robust science."
'Biosecurity remains the best and most prudent approach to mitigate the impact of the disease today.'
When asked about the possibility that the USDA might nevertheless proceed with the mass vaccination agenda, Hulscher said that "the USDA is ignoring the glaring risks of creating dangerous mutant strains with their plans to mass vaccinate poultry against bird flu amidst a bird flu animal pandemic."
Blaze News senior editor Daniel Horowitz drove home the point in a recent op-ed, noting that "leaky, waning vaccines that rely on suboptimal antibodies against rapidly mutating viruses can lead to immune tolerance and imprinting. This can cause the immune system to misfire, resulting in negative efficacy. Any short-term protection against severe disease often comes at a long-term cost as the viruses adapt and grow stronger."
Hulscher suggested that the best way forward when tackling HPAI in domestic flocks is better biosecurity: "Installing surface-air purification systems into farms, combined with iodine-based nasal/oral prophylaxis for farm workers, is a much less risky option than mass vaccination."
On this, it appears the USDA agrees.
The agency spokesperson told Blaze News that in the meantime, "because biosecurity remains the best and most prudent approach to mitigate the impact of the disease today, USDA also continues pursuing collaborative efforts with poultry farmers and companies on education, training, and implementation of comprehensive biosecurity measures."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
NYT Casually Admits USAID Squandered Money But Still Laments Its Closure
Around 1,000 USAID programs are still alive, and now managed through the State Department. The U.S. is still doing good internationally.Why I’m rooting for the lunatic over the creep in NYC
Although I would do so reluctantly — while holding a barf bag in one hand — if forced to vote in the next New York City mayoral election, I’d cast my ballot for Zohran Mamdani.
Yes, that Zohran Mamdani.
It isn’t just the Democratic Party destroying these cities — it’s the people who keep voting for them. Let them live with the consequences.
A dire warning about this unappetizing candidate, a “Muslim lefty from the other side of Queens,” just appeared in the New York Post, which reports that Mamdani consorts with pro-Hamas rioters, adores Black Lives Matter, and recently said Bill de Blasio was “the best mayor of his lifetime.”
In a sane political environment, such a figure would be consigned to the loony bin. But in the present urban climate, voters find themselves grasping for the least ghastly option — if they bother voting at all.
And Mamdani, God help me, appears marginally less disgusting than Andrew Cuomo, who is now the front-runner.
Cuomo, who presided over the slow death of New York as governor, seems poised to take the helm of a city already in decay. In any race to the bottom, he’d win in a landslide. This is a man who groped and manhandled female staffers while parading his feminist credentials; who packed nursing homes with COVID patients, causing the deaths of thousands; who then lied about it repeatedly and shamelessly. He worked tirelessly to eliminate cash bail, unleashing a wave of criminality across the state.
And yet, somehow, Mamdani is supposed to be worse?
That former Mayor Mike Bloomberg — now a prolific funder of leftist candidates — is backing Cuomo only sharpens the stench of this whole affair. The staleness of the New York political class, its complete moral exhaustion, has never been more evident.
Still, I’ll give you another reason I prefer Mamdani: Sometimes collapse is a better catalyst than stagnation.
Cuomo would likely run the city into the ground — but slowly. He’d reward the usual Democratic parasites with patronage, keep street crime just under the boiling point, and exercise marginally more restraint when it comes to unwanted touching. He’d reassure the woke plutocrats and Wall Street donors that he won’t rock the boat too much. He knows the game and plays it well.
But the rot would fester.
RELATED: New 12-foot-tall statue of woman in Times Square meant to represent ‘cultural diversity’
New York would remain unsafe. Schools and other public institutions would stay in the grip of culturally radicalized unions. The courts would remain ideological tools of the left. Nothing would improve. The decline would just ooze along — business as usual.
Mamdani, by contrast, might deliver a spectacular crash.
If he’s as doctrinaire and deranged as his critics suggest, his administration could bring about real catastrophe with impressive speed. That kind of shock might finally push productive citizens to flee en masse and accelerate the corporate exodus already under way. Sometimes it takes a maniac to wake the slumbering.
This wouldn’t be the first time a disastrous mayor paved the way for genuine reform. In 1994, New Yorkers elected Rudy Giuliani after enduring the catastrophic tenure of David Dinkins. Giuliani cracked down on crime, brought investment back, and helped restore a semblance of order. But it took years of misrule to make that turnaround politically possible.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking: That kind of change isn’t possible any more. Cities like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia are too far gone. Their voting blocs are locked into leftist fantasy. The idea of another Giuliani, a Richard Daley Sr., or even a Frank Rizzo showing up today seems laughable.
Maybe so. But if that’s true, then the voters are getting exactly what they asked for. It isn’t just the Democratic Party destroying these cities — it’s the people who keep voting for them.
Let them live with the consequences.
Given the state of our urban politics, the choice now is between ideological lunatics and cynical reprobates. Mamdani may fast-forward the train wreck. Cuomo might slow it down. But either way, the crash is coming.
At least with Mamdani, we might finally reach bottom — and from there, maybe, begin again.
How Trump Can Resolve A Legal Battle Between Mining Rights And Religious Liberty
The Resolution mine literally destroys a Native American place of worship. But the Religious Freedom Restoration Act allows burdens on religion when the government can demonstrate a compelling interest and use the least restrictive means available.
www.theblaze.com