Trump: ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED

US President Donald Trump has abruptly suspended all trade negotiations with Canada over a new advertisement that he claims mocked his tariff policies.

In a Truth Social post late Thursday, Trump said he was cutting off talks after learning that a Canadian government–backed advertisement featured former US President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs.

“Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED,” Trump wrote.
The move comes as the White House enforces a 35 percent tariff on Canadian imports, though exemptions remain in place for goods covered under the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), the trade deal Trump signed during his first term.

Trump alleged that the video, produced by Ontario’s provincial government, was an attempt to “interfere with” the US Supreme Court, which is expected to rule in November on whether his sweeping global tariffs are constitutional. That ruling could determine whether Washington must repay billions collected under the policy, one of Trump’s central economic strategies.

The one-minute ad features Reagan’s 1987 radio address on trade, warning of the dangers of protectionism. Over footage of the New York Stock Exchange and shipping cranes bearing both US and Canadian flags, Reagan is heard saying, “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.”

He continues, “High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars... Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down and millions of people lose their jobs.”

The Ronald Reagan Foundation condemned the ad, saying it had been “selectively edited” without authorization.

“The Government of Ontario did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks,” the foundation said in a post on X, adding that it was “reviewing its legal options.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose province has been among the hardest hit by US tariffs on steel and automobiles, defended the campaign. In a post accompanying the video, he wrote that Canada “will never stop making the case against American tariffs.”

Ford has long criticized Trump’s trade measures, once accusing Washington of having “yanked a knife into us” and threatening to cut off electricity exports to the US in retaliation.

The ad reportedly forms part of a 75 million Canadian dollars (USD 54 million) campaign airing on major American networks. Neither Ford nor former Bank of England governor Mark Carney, who has advised the Canadian government on trade matters, has commented on Trump’s latest decision.

The White House has also introduced new sector-specific tariffs, including a 50 percent levy on metals and 25 percent on automobiles. Canada’s manufacturing heartland, particularly Ontario, has borne the brunt of those measures.

Earlier this year, China’s embassy in Washington used a similar Reagan clip to criticize Trump’s global tariff strategy, another move that the US president denounced at the time.