The rocky relationship between Canada and the United States just hit another stumbling block.
President Donald Trump proclaimed Thursday evening that “ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED” due to an advertisement run on Canadian television that criticizes U.S. tariffs.
Commissioned by Canada’s Ontario province, the ad features a voiceover by President Ronald Reagan, a GOP icon, cautioning against the use of tariffs.
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“When someone says, ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while, it works, but only for a short time. But over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer,” Reagan’s voice proclaims.
Steep duties prompt retaliation from governments across the globe and trigger trade wars, the ad says. “Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.”
“Throughout the world, there’s a growing realization that the weight of prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. America’s jobs and growth are at stake,” Reagan’s voice adds.
Trump wasted no time in taking to Truth Social to lambast the video as fake and fraudulent. In fact, Reagan did make the statements featured in the video, though they were reordered. The Ronald Reagan Foundation weighed in, saying the video “misrepresents” the former president’s sentiments on tariffs. The government of Ontario did not receive permission to utilize the audio, the foundation added.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, a member of Canada’s Progressive Conservative party and a longtime Trump critic, told Canadian outlet CBC News that “The commercial uses an unedited excerpt from one of President Reagan’s public addresses, which is available through public domain.”
Nonetheless, Ford caved to Trump’s pressure on Friday, saying Ontario would pause airing the ad so that “trade talks can resume.”
But the video of one of the most revered Republican presidents struck a nerve with Trump as the key pillar of his trade agenda—tariffs—is already under threat. On Nov. 5, the Supreme Court will hear the case against the sweeping duties, brought by a dozen states and seven small businesses.
“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 Truthed. “Canada has long cheated on Tariffs, charging our farmers as much as 400%. Now they, and other countries, can’t take advantage of the U.S. any longer.”
White House spokesperson Kush Desai said Ontario’s ad was “misleadingly edited.”
“The Trump Administration has repeatedly sought to address Canada’s longstanding, unfair trade barriers. These good-faith efforts with Canadian officials have not led to any constructive progress,” he added.
With Canada-U.S. trade negotiations at a standstill, the nation to the north is ramping up efforts to expand trade with other nations.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is accelerating the expansion of the Port of Montreal in Contrecoeur—a project that will cost 2.3 billion Canadian dollars ($1.64 billion), according to Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade and intergovernmental affairs.
The port will soon reach the peak of its container-handling capacity, port officials have said in recent months. But other challenges have cropped up, too, from dockworker strikes to ballooning construction costs.
But Carney is keen to see the project completed as it’s key to his plan to reduce dependence on U.S. trade. On Wednesday, he told reporters that he had set the “ambitious” goal of doubling non-U.S.-bound exports over the course of the next 10 years, amounting to $300 billion in new trade business, according to Canada’s CTV News.
Asked which exports the country could expand, Carney pointed to critical minerals from the Ring of Fire, a crescent-shaped geographical region in Ontario. Ford, who stood near Carney during the address to the media, has been gunning for the project’s acceleration. The prime minister also said Canada could up its exports of liquefied natural gas.
