The Canadian province of Ontario will stop after the weekend a television advertising campaign against US import duties, which prompted President Donald Trump to end trade negotiations with Canada in anger on Thursday night. Ontario Premier Doug Ford stated this on Friday after consultation with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The purpose of withdrawing the commercial, which uses a speech by former President Ronald Reagan to criticize import duties, is to allow trade negotiations between the two countries to resume. The spot will still be broadcast this weekend, including during the first two games of the World Series, the North American baseball championship, between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays.
The commercial, with fragments of Reagan’s speech in favor of free trade and against import duties, struck a chord with Trump, it became apparent last Thursday night. According to the Republican president, who counts Reagan among his political examples, the commercial was “fake”, he wrote on his social medium Truth Social. He accused Canada of trying to influence the US Supreme Court, which is considering the legality of Trump’s international tariffs.
Radio speech
Ford on Friday welcomed the attention to the ridicule Trump’s attack had generated. “We achieved our goal of engaging the American public at the highest levels,” Ford said in a statement. “It was always our intention to start a conversation about the kind of economy Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses.”
The spot features excerpts from a 1987 radio speech by Reagan. “In the long run, trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer,” Reagan says, among other things. Reagan signed a free trade agreement with Canada in 1988, which was expanded a few years later with Mexico to form the North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA. According to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, Reagan is quoted “selectively” in the spot. Although the excerpts are consistent with the content of the speech, it is not mentioned that Reagan made his argument for an exception for import duties against Japan.
However, conservative Canadian former minister Jason Kenney rejected that criticism. “The Ontario ad in no way misrepresents President Reagan’s anti-tariff speech,” Kenney said on
Since taking office as prime minister, Carney has tried to reach a deal on two visits to the White House to reduce Trump-imposed tariffs on steel, aluminum and cars, which are hurting the Canadian economy. Carney hopes a trade deal between the two neighbors and traditional allies can be reached at the APEC summit in South Korea late next week.
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Canadian province stops commercial against Trump’s tariffs with fragments of Reagan
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