A leading Canadian official on Friday refused to back away from a video featuring former President Ronald Reagan endorsing free trade, which triggered President Donald Trump‘s decision to cancel all tariff negotiations with Ottawa. The video will be aired as an ad during the World Series.
Trump abruptly terminated trade talks on Thursday due to accusations that Ontario was running a multimillion-dollar ad campaign denouncing the president’s tariffs on Canada by using allegedly “deceptive” audio and video from a 1987 speech Reagan gave on “free and fair trade.”
However, hours after a furious Trump pulled out of negotiations, Ontario Premier Doug Ford reposted the Reagan video on his social media account. Ford is the same official who, earlier this year, lost a tug-of-war with Trump over electricity tariffs.
Ford escalated his feud with Trump by vowing to run the video as an ad during the World Series, which features the Toronto Blue Jays — the only Canadian team in Major League Baseball. Last year, each game had an average of around 15 million viewers.
“I will be running the ad tonight for the World Series,” Ford told The Globe and Mail.
“Canada and the United States are friends, neighbors, and allies. President Ronald Reagan knew that we are stronger together,” Ford said in a post to X.
“God bless Canada and God bless the United States,” he added.
The debacle in Ontario has, at least for the moment, derailed Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s hopes of soon sealing a trade deal with the U.S. Carney has appeared to build a constructive relationship with Trump, with the two men holding a cordial meeting at the White House earlier this month. During that encounter, the president hailed Carney as a “world-class leader” and said, “We want Canada to do great.”
During comments to reporters on the deteriorated relationship between his country and the U.S. on Friday, Carney held out hope for a trade agreement but suggested Ottawa would intensify efforts to build new partnerships “with the economic giants of Asia.”
“We can’t control the trade policy of the United States. We recognize that the policy has fundamentally changed from the policy in the 1980s, 1990s, [and] 2000s, and it’s a situation where the United States has tariffs against every one of its trading partners to different degrees,” the prime minister said.
“Our officials, my colleagues, have been working with their American colleagues on detailed, constructive negotiations, discussions on specific transactions, specific sectors, steel, aluminum, and energy. And a lot of progress has been made, and we stand ready to pick up on that progress and build on that progress when the Americans are ready to have those discussions, because it will be for the benefit of workers in the United States, workers in Canada’s and families in both of our countries,” he added.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute originally flagged Canada’s video campaign this week, stating it is reviewing legal options due to concerns the “government of Ontario did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks.”
Similar to Trump’s allegations, the presidential foundation accused Ontario of misrepresenting Reagan’s remarks to make it seem like he was anti-tariff.
In his remarks, Reagan noted he had placed tariffs on certain Japanese products to correct “unfair trade practices,” explaining that the U.S.’s “commitment to free trade is also a commitment to fair trade.”
Reagan focused his remarks on his belief that open trade, not protectionist practices, represented the path forward for a robust and competitive economy. Overall, Reagan’s speech reiterated his philosophy that while limited protectionism can be a useful tool, more sweeping retaliatory practices that invite or “encourage trade wars” only inhibit free market policies that result in a higher standard of living for Americans.
“Throughout the world, there’s a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition,” he said, adding, “Over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer.”
Should the U.S. pursue the tariff strategy over open trade, Reagan warned that in the worst-case scenario, “markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs.”
Trump on Friday morning said he believed Reagan actually “LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY.”
STATES SCRAMBLE TO ADDRESS LAPSE IN SNAP FUNDING DURING GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
“CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!! They fraudulently took a big buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like Tariffs,” the president said. “Thank you to the Ronald Reagan Foundation for exposing this FRAUD.”
Trump added his conviction that the U.S. is “WEALTHY, POWERFUL, AND NATIONALLY SECURE AGAIN ALL BECAUSE OF TARIFFS!” in another Truth Social post.
