Late last week, Donald Trump did his best to spoil the party on Wall Street with an abrupt decision to break off tariff negotiations with Canada, which he called “a very difficult Country to TRADE with.”

Trump was irritable at the looming imposition of a digital services tax (DST) or, in his words, “a direct and blatant attack” on America. (You’d think the Canadians fired a ballistic missile at Detroit.)

The tiff was a bit confusing. Canada’s a G-7 nation, and just the day before, Scott Bessent said he reached an “understanding” with the G-7 to exempt US companies from foreign taxes the administration deems unfair. Trump’s social media broadside appeared to suggest that arrangement wasn’t finalized.

“They are obviously copying the European Union, which has done the same thing, and is currently under discussion with us,” he fumed, on the way to telling Mark Carney to expect a letter from Howard Lutnick: “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.”

It took Canada less than two days to back down. Late Sunday, the Canadian finance ministry said in a press release that Ottawa was rescinding the DST “in anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement” with the US.

According to finance minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, Carney and Trump agreed over the weekend to resume negotiations “with a view towards agreeing on a deal by July 21, 2025.”

A couple of things here. First, it’s absurd that the largest, most profitable tech companies in the world can get away with monetizing the passive digital engagement of billions the world over without paying a commensurate tax in the jurisdictions where those billions of people live. There’s nothing “unfair,” let alone offensive or egregious, about a proposed DST.

As the same Canadian press release noted, that tax was conceived half a decade ago “to address the fact that many large technology companies operating in Canada may not otherwise pay tax on revenues generated from Canadians.”

Ottawa, like everyone else in the world besides US mega-cap tech, their shareholders and Republicans on Capitol Hill, would like to have in place “a multilateral agreement” to address that “taxation gap,” as Canada characterized it.

But, like America’s other G-7 allies, it’s not a hill Canada wants to die on in tariff talks with Trump. Instead, they’ll try to secure a bilateral trade agreement that placates The White House and worry about taxing US tech companies later. Canada’s tax had been set to go into effect from Monday.

Second, this is still more evidence that Trump needn’t bully America’s allies — let alone this ally, Canada — to get what he wants. These are countries inclined to acquiesce to US demands short of submitting themselves for annexation. This latest dust up with Canada was for nothing, or at least it’s fair to say there was no reason to publicize it.

I mention this on Monday because trade with Canada does matter, and although US stocks shook off Trump’s threat to break off negotiations last week, Wall Street briefly traded lower on the prospect of yet another flare up in tensions between the US and its northern neighbor.

I realize there are elements of trade with Canada which may not be strictly speaking “fair,” and that ideally, the US can address those. But let’s not be obtuse: There’s no world in which the US should be at odds with Canada, and certainly not in a way that makes the bilateral relationship any semblance of tense.

This ongoing rancor Trump’s creating is wildly ridiculous and I gotta tell you: Creating hostility with neighboring countries for the sheer hell of it — fostering resentment among the populace of a nation with which you share a border — is never a good idea. I don’t care how “peace-loving” they generally are.