President Donald Trump announced late Thursday that he was ending "all trade negotiations" with Canada because of a television ad opposing U.S. tariffs that he said misstated the facts and called "egregious behavior" aimed at influencing U.S. court decisions.
The Canadian political advertisement used the recorded voice of late President Ronald Reagan saying tariffs cause trade wars and economic disaster.
Trump, who imposed import tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum and autos earlier this year, called the video ad fraudulent.
"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," he wrote on his social media site Truth Social.
Canada has responded to the tariffs with trade sanctions of its own, but the two sides have been in talks for weeks on a deal for the steel and aluminum sectors.
The post came after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he aims to double his country's exports to countries outside the U.S. because of the threat posed by Trump's tariffs.
Trump's call for an abrupt end to negotiations could further inflame trade tensions that already have been building between the two neighboring countries for months.
Carney's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The prime minister was set to leave Friday morning for a summit in Asia, while Trump is set to do the same Friday evening.
Earlier Thursday night, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute posted on social media platform X that an ad created by the government of Ontario "misrepresents the 'Presidential Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade' dated April 25, 1987."
It added that Ontario did not receive foundation permission "to use and edit the remarks."
The foundation said it is "reviewing legal options in this matter" and invited the public to watch the unedited video of Reagan's address.
Trump posted, "The ad was for $75,000. They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts."
The video uses five complete sentences from the five-minute weekly address, spliced together out of sequence.
"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," Reagan says. "And sometimes for a short while it works – but only for a short time."
He also says: "...over the long run such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer," and that the result of trade wars is that "Markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs."
The ad does not, however, mention that Reagan was using the address to explain that tariffs imposed on Japan by his administration should be seen as a sadly unavoidable exception to his basic belief in free trade as the key to prosperity.
Trump has called tariffs "the most beautiful word in the dictionary" and used them to apply pressure to countries around the world.
His trade war has increased U.S. tariffs to their highest levels since the 1930s and he has regularly threatened more duties, sparking concerns among businesses and economists.
Carney told reporters on Thursday that Canada will not allow unfair U.S. access to its markets if talks on various trade deals with Washington fail.
He met with Trump earlier this month to try to ease trade tensions, as the two countries and Mexico prepare for a review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement – a trade deal Trump negotiated in his first term, but has since soured on.
More than three-quarters of Canadian exports go to the U.S., and nearly $2.7 billion worth of goods and services cross the border daily.
Trump said earlier this week that he had seen the ad on television and said that it showed that his tariffs were having an impact.
"I saw an ad last night from Canada. If I was Canada, I'd take that same ad also," he said then.
In his own post on X last week, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, posted a link to the ad and the message: "It's official: Ontario's new advertising campaign in the U.S. has launched."
He continued, "Using every tool we have, we'll never stop making the case against American tariffs on Canada. The way to prosperity is by working together."
"I heard that the president heard our ad. I'm sure he wasn't too happy," he said on Tuesday.
Ford previously got Trump's attention with an electricity surcharge to U.S. states. Trump responded by doubling steel and aluminum tariffs.
The president has moved to impose steep U.S. tariffs on many goods from Canada. In April, Canada's government imposed retaliatory levies on certain U.S. goods – but it carved out exemptions for some automakers to bring specific numbers of vehicles into the country, known as remission quotas.
Trump's tariffs have especially hurt Canada's auto sector, much of which is based in Ontario. This month, Stellantis said it would move a production line from Ontario to Illinois.
