President Donald Trump fired off on Canada early Friday morning after a Canadian province paid for a video advertisement in an apparent attempt to bash Trump’s tariff policy.
Launched last week, the ad was paid for by the government of Ontario, and features lines from a speech of former President Ronald Reagan’s in which he speaks to the economic harm caused by tariffs. The ad buy comes amid Trump’s trade talks with Canada, which Thursday night he cut off, citing the ad as the reason for the breakdown in negotiations.
“CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!! 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 wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
“Canada is trying to illegally influence the United States Supreme Court in one of the most important rulings in the history of our Country. 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. Thank you to the Ronald Reagan Foundation for exposing this FRAUD.”
While Trump claims that the ad misrepresented Reagan’s views on tariffs, the lines heard in the ad were, in fact, said by Reagan during a 1987 radio speech, albeit not in the same order as heard in the ad. Reagan was also a well-known proponent of international free trade, having famously eliminated a number of the United States’ protectionist trade policies.
Trump’s rant also comes amid a Supreme Court case in which justices will decide whether Trump has the authority to issue broad tariffs, a case that could decide the fate of Trump’s trade policy, a key fixture of his agenda during his second term.