Ford Halts Anti-Tariff Campaign Following Tensions with Trump Administration

U.S. President Donald Trump has ended trade talks with Canada over an Ontario government anti-tariff advertising campaign running in the United States, prompting Premier Doug Ford to pull the ad at the request of Prime Minister Mark Carney.

 

The abrupt break in negotiations follows mounting White House frustration with Ottawa, which so far hasn’t agreed to the sort of punitive trade deal that other U.S. trading partners have accepted.

 

Mr. Trump became annoyed Thursday night at the ad, which features archival footage of late former U.S. president Ronald Reagan, a revered figure among Mr. Trump’s Republicans, warning that tariffs are economically disastrous.

 

In Truth Social posts Thursday and Friday, the U.S. President declared that “ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS ARE HEREBY TERMINATED,” incorrectly claimed that Mr. Reagan “LOVED TARIFFS,” and accused Canada of “trying to illegally influence the United States Supreme Court” on a coming case over Mr. Trump’s levies.

 

In a statement Friday afternoon, Mr. Ford said the ad would run as planned over the weekend – including during the first two games of baseball’s World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers – but would no longer air as of Monday.

 

“Ontario will pause its U.S. advertising campaign effective Monday so that trade talks can resume,” the Premier said.

 

“You know, it’s a crooked ad,” Trump said Friday night as he left the White House for a trip to Asia, shortly after the ad aired during the seventh inning of Fox’s national broadcast of Game 1 of the World Series between the Blue Jays and the Dodgers. “They could have pulled it tonight,” Trump said. “Well, that’s dirty play – but I can play dirtier than they can, you know.”

 

He said the spot had “reached U.S. audiences at the highest levels.” Mr. Ford allocated $75-million for the campaign, which ran across all four major U.S. television networks and several cable channels, including Fox News.

 

A source with knowledge of the campaign told The Globe and Mail that the advertising buy was already locked in with networks for the weekend.

 

Mr. Carney and Mr. Ford spoke to each other both Thursday night and on Friday, according to another source familiar with the conversations. The Prime Minister expressed his preference that the ad be pulled off the air.

The Globe is not identifying the sources as they were not authorized to speak publicly.

 

Sonia Carreno, president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada, told The Globe that it can be complicated to get an ad pulled from linear television, so it was plausible that Monday was the earliest Mr. Ford could end the campaign.

 

It remained unclear whether trade talks would resume. White House spokesman Kush Desai wrote in an e-mail that Ontario’s ad demonstrated that “Canadian officials would rather play games than engage with the Administration” and that talks “have not led to any constructive progress.”

 

“As President Trump made clear on Truth Social, further talks are a futile effort if Canada can’t be serious,” he said.

 

The Prime Minister on Friday said Canada was ready to resume talks at any time. He spoke while boarding a plane for a trip to Asia, where he is expected to see Mr. Trump in South Korea for next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Summit.

 

“We can’t control the trade policy of the United States,” Mr. Carney said, noting that “detailed and constructive progress” had been made in recent weeks to get tariff relief on steel and aluminum, as well as a possible deal on energy.

 

“We stand ready to pick up on that progress … when the Americans are ready to have those discussions because it will be to the benefit of workers” in both countries, said Mr. Carney, who did not take questions from reporters.

 

Kevin Hassett, Mr. Trump’s economic adviser, said Friday morning that the U.S. President’s “frustration has built up over time” because “the Canadians have been very difficult to negotiate with.”

 

“I guess the lack of flexibility and also, I would guess, the leftover behaviours from the Trudeau folks can be very frustrating,” Mr. Hassett told reporters outside the White House.

 

The tone was a shift from Mr. Carney and Mr. Trump’s Oval Office meeting earlier this month, during which Mr. Trump repeatedly praised the Prime Minister.

 

A third source, with connections to the Canadian and U.S. governments, said Mr. Trump’s displeasure isn’t just aimed at the ad.

 

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has complained to the President that Canada threatened to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to face war crime charges if he came to Canada, the source said. They added that the White House also didn’t take well to recent comments from Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, in which she called China a strategic partner.

 

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, meanwhile, weighed in with the President on Canada’s decision to impose tariffs on some vehicles imported by General Motors and Stellantis, the source said. The Globe is not identifying the source as they were not authorized to speak publicly.

 

Mr. Trump has imposed a raft of tariffs on Canada as part of his global trade war. Despite some six months of negotiations, the two sides have not reached a deal.

 

In Mr. Trump’s other trade deals this year, including with Britain, the European Union and Japan, U.S. trading partners have agreed to accept tariffs and quotas on their exports in exchange for Mr. Trump not imposing even higher levies.

 

The President is also facing a fight at the U.S. Supreme Court over his use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose some of his tariffs. The court is set on Nov. 5 to hear arguments over whether it is legal to use IEEPA to impose tariffs.

 

Ontario’s ad highlights the disconnect between Mr. Trump’s trade war and Mr. Reagan’s legacy as the godfather of free trade: He signed the Canada-U.S. free-trade agreement that became the basis for NAFTA and USMCA, and also laid the groundwork for the World Trade Organization.

 

The ad plays clips from a 1987 address in which Mr. Reagan warned about the dangers to the U.S. economy of imposing tariffs. “Markets shrink and collapse, industries shut down and millions of people lose their jobs,” he says.

 

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, which counts Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch on its board of trustees, complained on Thursday evening that the ad “misrepresents” Mr. Reagan’s speech and that the Ontario government did not have permission to use the remarks.

 

The foundation did not reply to questions about what it found misleading in the ad or whether it had discussed the matter with the White House.

 

Scott Lincicome, the head of trade policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute think tank, said Mr. Trump is “factually and historically incorrect” in portraying Mr. Reagan as someone who liked tariffs. Mr. Reagan only used tariffs narrowly to deal with specific trade disputes, while working overall to expand free trade, he added.

 

“Reagan was vocally pro-trade, vocally anti-protectionism, and he set the stage for, inarguably, the biggest expansion of U.S. and global trade ever. In that sense, Reagan was the exact opposite of Donald Trump,” Mr. Lincicome said.

 

Brian Clow, who handled U.S. trade relations as deputy chief of staff under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, said it wasn’t worth running the ad if it meant Mr. Trump would refuse to negotiate.

 

“There is clearly some merit to hitting back and talking directly to the Americans, but unfortunately, when the President reacts this way, Canada needs to adjust,” he said. “It’s not in anyone’s interest for talks to be frozen.”

 

 

 

 

With reports from James Keller and the Associated Press

This article was first reported  by The Globe and Mail