Trump says he’s canceling trade negotiations with Canada over antitariff ad

President Donald Trump said late Thursday that he is canceling “all trade negotiations” between the United States and Canada over a Canadian TV advertisement opposing U.S. tariffs, which have been imposed on exports such as steel and autos, again casting a shadow over ties with a major U.S. trading partner.

In a social media post, Trump said that Canada “fraudulently used an advertisement” that featured audio from a 1987 radio address by President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs as a nearsighted policy that would imperil American jobs.

The president cited a statement from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute that claimed the ad — aired last week by the government of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province — misrepresented Reagan’s address by using “selective audio and video.” The foundation said it was reviewing its legal options over the matter.

“High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse. Businesses and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs,” Reagan says in the ad.

While the advertisement splices and mixes various portions of Reagan’s radio address, using some lines out of sequence, all the quotes appear in the original address, indicating the audio is genuine.

Ontario’s advertisement, which cost about $53.5 million, was released in the U.S. last week. Trump, in his social media post, asserted without providing evidence that the ad and Reagan’s antitariff remarks were fake and designed to “interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court,” which is weighing the legality of most of the sweeping tariffs that have been a feature of Trump’s second term.

“Let’s take Ronald Reagan’s words and let’s blast it to the American people,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said ahead of the release of the ad.

The Reagan Foundation and the offices of Ford and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney could not be immediately reached for comment.

In the 1987 address, Reagan explains to the American public his decision to impose limited tariffs on Japanese products such as computers and TV sets earlier that year, saying that Japanese companies were engaging in unfair trade practices.

But he repeatedly adds that he made the decision reluctantly, saying tariffs or trade barriers “are steps that I am loath to take” and that he wishes to “lift these trade restrictions as soon as evidence permits.”

Reagan also lambastes the economic effects of trade restrictions and adds that his aversion to tariffs comes from personal experience.

“For those of us who lived through the Great Depression, the memory of the suffering it caused is deep and searing,” Reagan says. “And today many economic analysts and historians argue that high tariff legislation passed back in that period called the Smoot-Hawley tariff greatly deepened the depression and prevented economic recovery.”

Reagan’s tariffs — which affected less than one-half of 1% of Japanese sales in the United States, The Washington Post reported at the time — were gradually lifted over the next few years.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has upended U.S.-Canada ties by imposing punitive tariffs on Canadian exports and repeatedly threatening to make Canada the 51st state. Canadian officials have been in Washington in recent weeks for talks with their American counterparts, looking to strike a trade deal to address Trump’s levies.

Ford, the Ontario premier, last week expressed disappointment with the decision of automaker Stellantis to move an SUV production base out of Canada and into the U.S., blaming Trump for the decision and calling for retaliatory tariffs from Ottawa.

“That guy, President Trump, he’s a real piece of work,” Ford said at the time, according to the Associated Press. “I’m sick and tired of rolling over. We need to fight back.”