KINSELLA: Digital Services Tax a bad idea concocted by Trudeau gang

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Swing, batter!

Full disclosure and I confess: I campaigned for the Democrats.

Now, not every Democrat lacks a soul. Many of them are decent. But quite a few of them, as recent events make clear, have become willing hostages of Jew-hating, democracy-destroying, Hamas-fetishizing crypto-Nazis.

As a volunteer on Democratic presidential campaigns – for Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024 – I was on the team that played against Donald Trump several times. In so doing, I learned three important things.

One, Trump campaigned on killing free trade, and he’s doing just that. He’s got a mandate to kill free trade, in fact, from 77 million registered voters.

Two, he may have written a book called The Art of the Deal, but he never, ever does a deal where he doesn’t come out on top. Ever.

Three, he loves making the elites look bad.

Those are the guiding principles in Donald Trump’s political career, and – along with my friends Hillary, Joe and Kamala – I’ve never forgotten them. Despite his penchant for fibbing, Trump is pretty transparent about the big picture stuff. He is who he is. (Unfortunately.)

Which brings us to Friday afternoon, and Prime Minister Mark Carney learning the above-noted Trump Truisms™ the hard way. It’s unclear, at this point, whether Carney’s political popularity is going to take a hit. But there’s no doubt that the Liberal Leader has just experienced his first major policy and political failure.

On Friday afternoon, Trump posted this on his Truth Social platform:

“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. 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!”

Here we go again. Next stop: yet more “51st state” talk and Mike Myers pep talks.

What’s the “Digital Services Tax,” you ask? Well, it’s an attempt to squeeze revenue out big online service providers like Meta or X or TikTok. It’s a tax grab, yes, first concocted by the Trudeau gang about a year ago.

It was always a bad idea, as my colleague Brian Lilley has detailed in a kajillion opinion columns, because (a) the online elf-lords were simply going to pass along the cost of the tax to Canadian consumers, (b) it was going to create lots of red tape and government bureaucracy, and (c) it was going to place Canadian exports at risk, because the Americans had repeatedly said they were going to retaliate.

And now, Donald has. Tariffs, back. Trade deal, gone.

Carney wanted a shiny new trade pact with Trump, which was never going to happen. Carney somehow convinced himself it could and would, however. So he sent off secret teams to negotiate with the Trump administration, and side-stepped assorted Trump landlines – unlike his predecessor, who had a talent for landing on them. The American media was impressed – over on CNN, Christiane Amanpour gushed that Carney was “the Trump whisperer.”

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Well, actually, no. Not even The Donald’s immediate family are “Trump whisperers.”

And so, now, we are back to square one, with Trump attacking us, lying about our trade practices, and threatening even more tariffs. Carney, meanwhile, has become the George Brett of politics – terrific at hitting the ball, but marooned for eternity on third base. Like the retired Kansas City Royal, Carney was so close but oh so far.

Is it game over? With Trump, it’s impossible to predict.

One thing is for sure: next time Mark Carney steps up to bat, he’d be well-advised to remember the Trump Truisms™ up above.

And who knows? Next time he might even get to home base.