President Donald Trump late Friday criticized the government of Canada’s Ontario province for waiting until after the first two games of the World Series to halt a television ad criticizing former President Ronald Reagan’s tariffs.
“We could have called it off tonight,” Trump told reporters at the White House on his way to Asia.
“Well, it’s a dirty play,” he said. “But I can play dirtier than them.”
President Trump cited the ad in his decision on trade negotiations with Canada on Thursday night.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced Friday afternoon that the province would pause advertising on Monday to allow trade talks to resume.
But Ford also said he has “directed the team to continue to get our message in front of the American people throughout the weekend so we can air commercials during the first two games of the World Series.”
President Trump said Friday night that he had heard that Ontario was pulling the ad.
But he also said he didn’t know the government had left it alone until Monday.
The ad aired Friday night during the broadcast of Game 1 of the World Series to millions of Americans.
In that game, the Toronto Blue Jays of Canada defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers of the United States 11-4.
Toronto is located in Ontario and is Ford’s hometown.
“Our intent has always been to start a conversation about the type of economy Americans want to build and the impact tariffs will have on workers and businesses,” Ford said in a tweet Friday announcing the suspension of advertising.
“We reached the highest level of American audiences and achieved our goals,” Ford said, apparently referring to Trump.
“In my meeting with Premier Mark Carney, Ontario will pause its U.S. advertising campaign starting Monday so we can resume trade talks,” he said.
President Trump suspended trade negotiations with Canada after the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute claimed that the ad misrepresented President 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, inviting people to watch it in full.
Ford responded to the criticism early Friday, tweeting a link to the same video.
In it, President Reagan discusses the recent imposition of new tariffs on some Japanese products “in response to Japan’s failure to honor its trade agreements with Japan regarding electronic equipment known as semiconductors.”
Ontario’s ad lacks that context. But the ad captures exactly what President Reagan said: “In the long run, these trade barriers hurt all American workers and consumers.”
The ad also features President Reagan’s remarks 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 American jobs. And sometimes it works for a short period of time, but only for a short period of time.”
President Reagan said in speeches and advertisements that “high tariffs inevitably lead to foreign retaliation and a violent trade war.”
Ford, who describes himself as a “huge Ronald Reagan fan,” first ran the ad in X on Oct. 16, just days after the Ontario government announced it would spend $75 million on advertising in the United States.
“We’re going to repeat that message to every Republican district in the country,” Ford said.
Trump raged about the ad in a post on Truth Social on Friday morning.
“Canada was tricked and caught!!! They were fraudulently given an expensive purchasing ad saying they didn’t like tariffs, when in reality Ronald Reagan loved tariffs for our country and national security,” Trump wrote.
“Canada is illegally trying to influence the U.S. Supreme Court in one of the most important decisions in our nation’s history. Canada has long cheated on tariffs, charging our farmers as much as 400%. Now, neither Canada nor other countries can take advantage of the United States any longer. 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 determine whether President Trump had the authority under the law to impose sweeping tariffs on numerous countries, including Canada, without Congressional consent.
