Prices are about to go up — again — for the 83% of American households with at least one streaming subscription. The culprit behind this price hike, though, lies beyond America’s borders. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) recently tripled the revenue that streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, and YouTube must set aside to fund Canadian programming, raising the base contribution from 5% of a company’s Canadian revenue to 15%.
Unfortunately, this predatory protectionist behavior by a foreign government is hardly an isolated case. As the Taxpayers Protection Alliance concluded in its recent report “Death by a Thousand Quotas: The Impact of Foreign Regulations on Streaming Services,” foreign governments’ policies regularly result in higher bills for American streaming consumers. President Donald Trump needs to end this madness and push for fairer rules that don’t target innovative U.S. companies.
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The CRTC’s streaming shenanigans are anything but new or unique. American streaming services are caught in a growing web of quotas, taxes, “discoverability” mandates, and local content spending requirements. TPA’s report demonstrates that these rules function as a form of digital protectionism that raises costs for consumers, limits viewer choice, and undermines innovation in the streaming market.
One of the report’s central findings is that many governments are attempting to force streaming companies to subsidize domestic entertainment industries regardless of whether consumers actually want the content being promoted. For example, in the European Union streaming services are already required to ensure that at least 30% of their catalogs consist of European works. EU member states have gone even further by imposing mandatory investment obligations requiring platforms to spend a percentage of their local revenues on domestic film and television production. TPA’s analysis points out that these mandates distort market incentives by prioritizing political goals over consumer demand and forcing companies to invest in content based on geography rather than audience preferences.
The report highlights Canada and Québec as particularly aggressive examples of this trend. Québec’s Bill 109 imposes “discoverability” requirements that pressure streaming platforms to elevate and promote government-approved local content — which is concerning for multiple reasons. These rules effectively interfere with recommendation algorithms by encouraging governments to shape what consumers see first on streaming platforms. Rather than allowing viewers to organically discover content based on viewing habits and preferences, regulators are attempting to engineer cultural outcomes through mandated promotion schemes. The report warns that this could make streaming services less personalized and less useful for consumers while also increasing compliance costs for companies operating internationally.
Australia is also eager to embrace interventionist streaming policies. A law passed by Australian Parliament requires major streaming companies to either spend at least 10% of their total local programming expenses or spend at least 7.5% of their gross Australian revenues on local content — just to keep operating within the country. These rules amount to a hidden tax on streaming services that will ultimately be passed on to consumers through higher subscription prices. The report notes that these mandates are especially problematic because streaming markets are already highly competitive and sensitive to price increases. Additional regulatory burdens will only result in less investment, fewer small entrants, and reduced choices for consumers.
Additionally, foreign governments are increasingly imposing discriminatory taxes and levies on almost exclusively American digital services. Several countries have explored or implemented special taxes targeting American streaming platforms while exempting or favoring domestic competitors, and Canada’s deeply flawed CRTC rules are just the latest example. These measures are, for all intents and purposes, trade barriers, and are being applied at an alarming rate to the digital economy. In practice, these policies ruthlessly and relentlessly transfer wealth from successful U.S. technology and entertainment firms to politically connected domestic media industries.
POLITICS SHOULDN’T BLOCK PARAMOUNT-WARNER BROS. DEAL THAT HELPS STREAMING CONSUMERS
While American streaming services and their consumers are the primary casualties, these policies could have unintended consequences for local creators. While supporters of quotas often argue that they help preserve domestic culture, mandatory content rules can encourage quantity over quality by rewarding productions that satisfy regulatory definitions rather than attract genuine audiences. Streaming services may respond by producing lower-cost content simply to meet quota thresholds, rather than investing in projects with broad international appeal. In the long run, this will almost certainly weaken creative industries by making them more dependent on government mandates instead of consumer approval.
Congress and the Trump administration can and should push back against Canada’s — and other nations’ — attempts to punish successful U.S. companies. Americans should not have to pay foreign streaming taxes.
Ross Marchand is the executive director of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.
