Canada caves to pressure from Trump over Ronald Reagan ad

By Brett Rowland
The Center Square

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Friday that he would scrap a $56 million ad campaign that used clips of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan from 1987 warning about the dangers of tariffs and protectionist policies.

Trump suspended trade talks late Thursday after the Ontario government spent about $75 million Canadian on ads featuring audio and video of Reagan to air on American TV stations.

Ford initially said Friday that he wouldn’t back down, saying “Canada and the United States are friends, neighbours and allies. President Ronald Reagan knew that we are stronger together.”

That changed six hours later. Ford said he would pull the ad beginning Monday after two World Series games over the weekend. The Los Angeles Dodgers face the Toronto Blue Jays in a best-of-seven series for baseball’s championship.

“Our intention was always to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses,” Ford wrote on X. “We’ve achieved our goal, having reached U.S. audiences at the highest levels. I’ve directed my team to keep putting our message in front of Americans over the weekend so that we can air our commercial during the first two World Series games.”

Ford said he decided to pull the ads after talking with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

“Ontario will pause its U.S. advertising campaign effective Monday so that trade talks can resume,” Ford said. “The people elected our government to protect Ontario – our workers, businesses, families and communities. That’s exactly what I’m doing. Like I said earlier today: Canada and the U.S. are neighbours, friends and allies. We’re so much stronger when we work together. Let’s work together to build Fortress Am-Can and make our two countries stronger, more prosperous and more secure.”

The advertisement campaign featured Reagan saying he was “loath” to put up any barriers to free trade, but did so in response to Japan’s trade decisions on semiconductors.

“But, over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American, worker and consumer,” Reagan says in the 1987 address.

The Ronald Reagan Foundation said Ontario took the former GOP president’s remarks out of context.

“The ad misrepresents the Presidential Radio Address, and the Government of Ontario did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks,” the foundation wrote in a post on X. The foundation said it was “reviewing its legal options in this matter” and encouraged all interested to watch Reagan’s unedited video on its YouTube channel.

Trump said Reagan, a GOP icon whose portrait hangs in Trump’s Oval Office, loved tariffs.

“CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!!,” Trump wrote on Friday morning on his social media platform. “They fraudulently took a big buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like Tariffs, when actually he LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY.”

Trump accused Canada of trying to “illegally influence” the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case challenging his tariff authority.

“Canada is trying to illegally influence the United States Supreme Court in one of the most important rulings in the history of our Country,” Trump said Friday in his post.

Trump’s economic agenda is tied to tariffs. However, a group of small businesses, some Democrat-led states, and two toymakers have challenged the president’s tariff authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. That law doesn’t mention tariffs. The case is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has set oral arguments for Nov. 5.

Trump put a 35% tariff on most Canadian goods not covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a trade agreement Trump negotiated in his first term that preserved free trade among the three countries on most goods.

The dust-up started late Thursday, when Trump said he would suspend all talks with Canada over the ad campaign.

“The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs. The ad was for $75,000,000,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts. TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A. Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”

Trump previously suspended trade talks with Canada in late June, but Canada caved to Trump’s demands by pulling its digital services tax hours before it was to go into effect. Canada’s proposed digital services tax required foreign and domestic businesses to pay taxes on some revenue earned from engaging with online users in Canada.

Jason Kenney, a former Conservative cabinet minister under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, called Trump’s comments and the response from the Ronald Reagan Foundation “embarrassing.”

“The Ontario ad does not misrepresent President Reagan’s anti-tariff radio address in any respect whatsoever. It is a direct replay of his radio address, formatted for a one-minute ad,” Kenney wrote in a post on X. “Everything that Reagan said in his pro free trade April, 1987 radio message is consistent with the ad. In fact, everything he ever said about trade, before and after becoming President, is consistent with his principled opposition to tariffs.”

He also called out the foundation for its comments.

“The @RonaldReagan Foundation knows these things. They know perfectly well that the Ontario ad captures precisely President Reagan’s opposition to tariffs, and support for free trade,” Kenney wrote. “But it is obvious that the Foundation now has gormless leadership which is easily intimidated by a call from the White House, yet another sign of the hugely corrosive influence of Trump on the American conservative movement. For shame.”

In the video, Reagan said he opposes tariffs and protectionist trade policies, both of which Trump has employed extensively in his second term. Reagan said such policies only work for a short time in the video.

“You see, at first when someone says ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they are doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes, for a short while, it works. But only for a short time,” Reagan said. “What eventually occurs is first homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs, they stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets. And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers and less and less competition.”

Reagan also said high tariffs “subsidize inefficiency and poor management.”