Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney waves next to US President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, DC, USA, October 7, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
President Donald Trump said Saturday he was imposing an additional 10% tariff on imports from Canada in retaliation for what he said was a misleading television commercial in which former President Ronald Reagan criticized the tariffs.
“Canada was caught red-handed by running a deceptive ad in Ronald Reagan’s tariff speech,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“Due to their serious misrepresentation of the facts and their hostile actions, I am increasing Canada’s tariff by 10% above the amount they are currently paying,” he wrote.
Canada generally pays a 35% tariff on goods sold in the United States, with exceptions for certain products covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and other specific product exceptions, such as: B. Steel and aluminum, which are subject to a 50% tariff.
Trump late Friday criticized the provincial government of Ontario, Canada, for waiting until after the first two games of the World Series to pause the Reagan commercial.
“You could have done it tonight,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he headed to Asia.
“Well, this is a dirty game,” he said. “But I can play dirtier than them, you know.”
Trump cited the ad in his decision on trade negotiations with Canada on Thursday evening.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Friday afternoon he would pause the ad on Monday to allow trade talks to resume.
But Ford also said, “I have instructed my team to continue to convey our message to Americans over the weekend so that we can air our commercial during the first two World Series games.”
Trump said Friday evening that he had heard that Ontario was withdrawing the ad.
But he also said he only knew on Monday that the government would leave it alone.
The ad was shown to millions of Americans Friday night during a broadcast of Game 1 of the World Series.
The Toronto Blue Jays from Canada won this game 11:4 against the Los Angeles Dodgers from the USA.
Toronto is located in Ontario and is Ford’s hometown.
In a tweet Friday announcing the commercial break, Ford said: “Our intent has always been to start a conversation about the type of economy Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses.”
“We achieved our goal by reaching U.S. audiences at the highest level,” Ford said, apparently referring to Trump.
“Talking to the Prime Minister [Mark] “Carney, Ont., will pause its U.S. advertising campaign starting Monday to allow trade talks to resume,” he said.
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Trump abandoned trade talks with Canada after the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute claimed that the ad misrepresented Reagan’s April 25, 1987 radio address and that his remarks had been edited without authorization.
The foundation posted a YouTube video of the speech on its website and urged people to watch it in its entirety.
Ford responded to that criticism on Friday by tweeting a link to the same video.
In it, Reagan discusses his recent imposition of new tariffs “on some Japanese products in response to Japan’s inability to enforce its trade agreement with us on electronic devices called semiconductors.”
This context is missing from the Ontario ad. But the ad accurately echoes Reagan’s statement: “In the long run, such trade barriers harm every American worker and consumer.”
In the ad, Reagan also says, from the same speech, “When someone says, ‘Let’s put tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes it works for a short time – but only for a short time.”
“High tariffs inevitably lead to foreign retaliation and the initiation of violent trade wars,” Reagan said in the speech and ad.
Ford, who describes himself as a “huge Ronald Reagan fan,” first posted the ad on October 16
“We will take this message to every Republican district across the country,” Ford said.
Trump expressed outrage at the ad in a Truth Social post Friday morning.
“CANADA cheated and got caught!!! They fraudulently accepted a major purchase ad that said Ronald Reagan didn’t like tariffs when he actually loved tariffs for our country and its national security,” Trump wrote.
“Canada is trying to illegally influence the Supreme Court of the United States in one of the most important rulings in our country’s history. Canada has long cheated on tariffs and charged our farmers up to 400%. Now they and other countries can no longer take advantage of the US. Thank you to the Ronald Reagan Foundation for exposing this FRAUD.”
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in early November in a case that will decide whether Trump has the authority under the law to impose sweeping tariffs on numerous countries, including Canada, without congressional approval.
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