(Lindsay Chutel’s post from The NEW YORKTIMES USA on 24 October 2025.)
An ad, bought by the province of Ontario, sent an
anti-tariff message using sound bites from an address President Ronald Reagan
made decades ago. President Trump claimed the ad was “fraud” and terminated
trade talks with Canada.
In calling a halt to trade talks with Canada, President Trump pointed to an ad paid for by the province of Ontario that used a speech President Ronald Reagan made decades ago. In it, Mr. Reagan speaks against tariffs, a tool Mr. Trump has widely deployed, including against Canada, and warns against protectionism.
Mr. Trump claimed that the ad was fake and that it had been aired “to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court,” which is considering a legal challenge to many of his tariffs. But the advertisement, which Ontario’s provincial government purchased to air in the United States, uses sound bites from a radio address Mr. Reagan made in April 1987 that was critical of tariffs. It reproduces Mr. Reagan’s quotes accurately, but changes the order he said them.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and
Institute said in a statement that the Canadian ad misrepresented Mr. Reagan’s
views. The foundation did not immediately respond to a question about how the
ad misrepresented those views.
Mr. Reagan’s pro-free trade legacy has become an
awkward issue for Republicans, who still lionize the former president as a
conservative hero but are now led by the highly protectionist Mr. Trump, who
has imposed the most tariffs on U.S. imports since the Great Depression.
In his quest to reorder world trade, Mr. Trump has raised tariffs against allies and adversaries alike, prompting trade clashes and disregarding free trade agreements formerly signed with nations including Canada. According to the Yale Budget Lab, American consumers now face an overall tariff rate of 18 percent, the highest level since 1934.
Though Mr. Reagan supported “fair trade” and put
some tariffs on foreign products, he staunchly praised the benefits of more
open trade. Mr. Reagan presided over free trade negotiations with Canada that
led to the signing of a trade deal between the countries in 1988. With the
addition of Mexico in 1994, that pact became the North American Free Trade
Agreement.
In the 1987 radio address, Mr. Reagan was warning
Congress not to pass protectionist trade legislation against Japan as he
prepared to meet with that country’s prime minister, Yasuhiro Nakasone.
Mr. Reagan had himself just imposed high tariffs on
Japanese electronics over what he called unfair trade practices by Tokyo. But
he said that those tariffs were an example of “certain select cases,” and used
much of the five-minute address to warn about the pitfalls of protectionism in
general terms.
