Trump is bullying Canada over ‘digital taxes’ and Canada caved | Joseph Stiglitz

The question now: will countries cave in to these threats or stick together and collect the billions they are rightly owed?

Donald Trump's announcement calling off trade talks with Canada over its digital tax - and that he would impose retaliatory tariffs - demonstrates, once again, not only the president's 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.

Joseph E Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate in economics, university professor at Columbia University and chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute

Anya Schiffrin, senior lecturer at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and her student Philip L Crane contributed to this piece