Earlier this week, U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly halted all ongoing trade negotiations with Canada, citing objections to a recent advertisement aired by Ontario, a Canadian province. The ad featured former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s remarks on tariffs and trade, wherein Reagan asserted that tariffs “hurt every American.” This move by Trump has stirred considerable controversy, prompting scrutiny of the content and context of Reagan’s original speech, as well as the political dynamics underpinning U.S.-Canada trade relations.
The advertisement in question, sponsored by Ontario, was released last week and runs for about one minute. It utilizes excerpts from a 1987 address given by Ronald Reagan, titled “Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade.” In the speech, Reagan discussed the importance of free trade and the detrimental effects of tariffs on the American economy. The ad aimed to highlight Reagan’s pro-free trade stance, presumably to underline the economic risks posed by protectionist policies such as tariffs.
However, President Trump dismissed the ad as “FAKE,” arguing that it misrepresented Reagan’s position. The Ronald Reagan Foundation also weighed in, stating that the advertisement “misrepresents” Reagan’s original address. In response to the backlash and the suspension of trade talks, Ontario announced it would cease running the ad to allow negotiations to resume.
A detailed analysis of the ad reveals that while the words used are directly taken from Reagan’s original speech, the advertisement rearranges the order of the statements and selectively omits portions of the content. This restructuring changes the narrative flow and context in which Reagan’s remarks were originally made. Below is an examination of the ad’s key excerpts compared with their placement and meaning in the original 1987 speech.
The advertisement opens with the line: “When someone says, ‘let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes, for a short while it works, but only for a short time.” These exact words are indeed from Reagan’s address, yet they appear about halfway through the full speech, not at the beginning as the ad suggests.
In the original speech, Reagan begins by announcing an upcoming visit by Japan’s prime minister to the White House, where “recent disagreements” on trade will be discussed. This context is important because Reagan was addressing a specific trade dispute with Japan and had recently imposed tariffs on certain Japanese goods. Before arriving at the ad’s opening line, Reagan elaborates on his general opposition to tariffs, extolling the “prosperity and economic development that only free trade can bring.” He also notes how high tariff legislation exacerbated the Great Depression.
The next line featured in the ad is: “Over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American, worker and consumer.” Reagan did say this, but in the original speech, it appears earlier and is not immediately connected to the preceding sentence as the ad suggests. In fact, this line is part of Reagan’s explanation for why he reluctantly imposed tariffs, describing them as a “special case” due to unfair trade practices by some companies. He emphasized that imposing trade barriers was an unwanted but necessary response to violations of trade agreements.
Continuing, the advertisement states: “High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars.” This assertion is also directly from Reagan’s address, but, once again, the ad places it immediately after the previous line, whereas in the original speech, about a minute of additional commentary separates these points.
In the full speech, Reagan details the negative consequences of tariffs, explaining how protectionism leads homegrown industries to depend on government protection instead of innovation, eventually causing trade wars as other countries retaliate. He said: “First, homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets. And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars.”
The ad then continues with the line: “Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down and millions of people lose their jobs.” Reagan did say this immediately following the previous sentence, but the advertisement omits some of the explanatory sentences in between, which provide context about how tariffs inflate prices and reduce consumer demand.
In the original speech, Reagan elaborated: “The result is more and