Trump ends trade negotiations with Canada over TV advert criticizing US tariffs

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday, October 24 he was terminating trade talks with Canada, threatening once again to undermine the crucial economic relationship between the United States and its second-biggest trading partner.
 

Trump stated he canceled the talks in response to an advertisement released last week by the government of Canada’s Ontario province. The ad featured audio from a 1987 speech by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs on foreign goods, where Reagan lambasted tariffs as hurting “every American worker and consumer” and “triggering fierce trade wars.”

After the ad aired, the Ronald Reagan Foundation claimed it “misrepresents” the speech and that the Ontario government had not asked permission to use the clip. While the ad edited the speech and lacked context, the theme of Reagan’s full five-minute speech, which the Reagan Library has published on YouTube, is full-throated support for free and fair trade.

Reagan delivered the original speech from Camp David during a period when he had just placed higher tariffs on various Japanese products, though he was clear at the time that he was “loath” to take that action and believed high tariffs had exacerbated the Great Depression.

The Government of Ontario just spent $75 million on a pro-trade/anti-tariff ad starring… Ronald Reagan. pic.twitter.com/uD5wJgZEzv

— Scott Lincicome (@scottlincicome) October 15, 2025

Trump took to social media on Thursday night to blast the ad on Truth Social. He wrote that the Ronald Reagan Foundation had announced Canada “fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs.” He claimed the ad aimed to “interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts,” and defended tariffs as critical to the U.S. economy and national security. Trump concluded his post by writing: “Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”
 

In a separate post on Monday, Trump incorrectly stated that Reagan supported tariffs, writing: “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.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded on Friday, saying his country “can’t control the trade policy of the US.” He acknowledged that U.S. trade policy has “fundamentally changed” from previous decades, noting that the U.S. “has tariffs against every one of their trading partners in different countries.”

Carney insisted that tariff negotiations with the U.S. had yielded “a lot of progress.” He added, “We stand ready to pick up on that progress and build on that progress when the Americans are ready to have those discussions, because it will be for the benefit of workers in the United States, workers in Canada and families in both of our countries.”

The friendship between the U.S. and Canada has been tense since Trump took office amid disputes over tariffs and trade. Canada has long been one of the U.S.’ top trading partners, with the U.S. importing $411.9 billion worth of goods from Canada last year. However, Canada’s economy has been hit hard by Trump’s steep sectoral tariffs on key exports like autos, steel, aluminum, lumber, and energy, which fall under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Canada’s unemployment rate is currently at its highest point in nine years.

Carney, who won an election in April with a warning about the changing relationship with the U.S., has focused on diversifying trade. On Thursday, before Trump’s post, he announced that Canada plans to double its non-U.S. exports in the next decade, with the core mission being to build an economy that “doesn’t rely on a single trade partner.”

Despite the friction, tensions had eased slightly in recent months, with Carney meeting Trump at the Oval Office earlier this month. 

During the meeting, Trump praised his counterpart as a “world-class leader,” and Canadian trade minister Dominic LeBlanc said negotiators for both countries had been given directions to “quickly land deals” on steel, aluminum, and energy