President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was terminating trade talks with Canada, in response to an advertisement released last week by the government of Canada’s Ontario province, which featured audio from a speech by former US President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs on foreign goods.
“Based on their egregious behavior, all trade negotiations with Canada are hereby terminated,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He added that “The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs,”.
Trump said that ad aimed to “interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts,” and defended tariffs as critical to the US economy and national security
This sudden shift in the relationship between the two North American neighbors comes Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’ meeting Trump at the Oval Office in Washington DC. earlier this month in an effort to ease U.S. tariffs.
There, Trump joked about a “merger” of the two countries but also praised his counterpart as a “world-class leader.”
Earlier Thursday night, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute posted on 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.”
Canadian Prime Minister Mark 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 ultimately fail”
Canada has long been one of the US’ top trading partners; last year, the US imported $411.9 billion worth of goods from Canada, according to government figures.
But Canada’s economy has been hit hard by Trump’s steep sectoral tariffs on autos, steel, aluminum, lumber, and energy – some of the country’s key exports to the US. Those fall under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which Trump brokered during his first term and will be under mandatory review next year. Canada’s unemployment rate is now at its highest point in nine years.
