The leader of Ontario declined to apologize for sponsoring an anti-tariff television commercial that US President Donald Trump used as a reason to terminate high-stakes trade talks with Canada.
“We have achieved our goal, to make sure that conversation starts with the American people, and with their elected officials, and my goodness, it’s started all right,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters at the province’s legislature in Toronto. “The best ad that ever ran, I’ll tell you.”
His government ran an advertisement on US networks quoting excerpts from a 1987 radio address in which former President Ronald Reagan argued against tariffs, while explaining why he had used them as a last resort against Japan.
Trump initially gave a low-key reaction on Tuesday, saying he’d also air the commercial if he were in charge of Canada. Two days later, citing a complaint from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute, he terminated trade talks with Canada, calling the ad “fake” and “fraudulent.”
After Ford spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, he agreed to pause the ad, but only after running it on Friday and Saturday during Major League Baseball’s World Series. On Saturday afternoon, Trump said he would hike tariffs on Canada by 10%, arguing the ad was an attempt to influence the US Supreme Court’s deliberations about the legality of his levies.
Trump has also suggested, without evidence, that Ontario used artificial intelligence to doctor Reagan’s comments.
Ontario is Canada’s largest provincial economy and has nearly 40% of the country’s population.
The president on Monday said he doesn’t want to meet with Carney, and won’t for a while, though they are attending the same international summit in Asia later this week.
Ford said Trump respects strength, so Ontario shouldn’t “roll over” for a trade deal.
“My intention was never to poke the president in the eye. My intention was to inform the American people this is serious and it’s going to cost you jobs if we don’t have a fair trade deal with your closest friend and ally,” Ford said, claiming the ad was merely an “excuse” to end talks.
Ontario’s export-oriented auto sector had been neglected in trade negotiations with the US, the premier said, adding that “there’s no mention of auto anywhere we’ve seen.” Carmakers have delayed new investments in the province in recent weeks due to Trump’s tariffs on the sector.
Motor vehicles and parts were Ontario’s largest export in 2023 at C$73 billion ($52 billion).
Ford told reporters the government will spend much less than the C$75 million initially budgeted because it had been scheduled to run into early 2026. The province got its money’s worth, he added, by earning hundreds of millions of views — largely because of Trump’s anger about it. Carney and his chief of staff saw the ad before it went out, Ford said.
Ford dismissed the Reagan Foundation’s claim that the ad was misleading, saying Ontario had asked a US law firm to vet the ad. In response to the foundation’s threat of legal action, the premier said: “They can do whatever they want. They’re not going to win.”
The commercial may have prompted conversation within the upper ranks of the Republican Party. On Sunday, former Vice President Mike Pence shared an opinion column on X, alongside a comment that Reagan “was a free trader, no matter what the current president says.”
