Policy Brief No. 220 — January 2026
Trade Conflicts and Competition Policy in Canada’s Digital Economy ‘Damola Adediji and Jeremy de Beer
Key Points → US President Donald Trump’s stance on trade and competition policy is contradictory. Tariffs, not technology regulations, are truly anti-competitive policy tools. → Canada must strategically re-evaluate its digital policies to determine which are negotiable in trade talks with the United States and which must be safeguarded. → Protecting Canada’s regulatory infrastructure around digital competition should be a top priority to help reduce digital dependencies and strengthen sovereignty.
Introduction Policies and legislation to curb potentially anti-competitive behaviour by firms — chiefly large American firms — in the technology sector are under threat. Part of President Trump’s trade war aims to weaken or eliminate nontariff barriers to American tech firms’ operations abroad, including competition law and other forms of digital regulation. As pressure to make “deals” with the United States mounts, other nations are trying to preserve their sovereignty to regulate the digital economy. A plea to Canada’s prime minister signed by concerned organizations and individuals exemplifies worries about topics such as artificial intelligence (AI), privacy, online harms, data localization, taxation of digital services, cybersecurity, online news, streaming and more.1 Myriad concerns exist about America’s “algorithmic empire” (Appleton 2025) but underlying them all seems
1
See www.documentcloud.org/documents/26080445-open-letter-to-prime-ministermark-carney/.