The air in the Windsor sports bar smelled like fried pickles, stale hops, and a quiet dare. It was Game Two of the World Series, Dodgers versus Jays, and the only sound louder than the clack of billiards was the unmistakable voice of Ronald Reagan echoing from the muted TV.
“High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars…”
Jason—mid-forties, Leafs cap, warehouse manager—froze mid-sip, staring up at the screen like he’d just heard his old high school principal quoting Drake. “Reagan?” he said. “Like… that Reagan?”
The screen flickered. Ontario’s coat of arms appeared. Then a tagline, soft but unmissable: Fair trade. Free trade. Reagan knew the difference. A few Jays fans cackled. One guy near the back snorted and yelled, “Bet Trump just sh*t himself.”
By the time the next batter stepped to the plate, he probably had.
The ad had aired not in Canada, but in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—swing states, heartland, Trump country. It featured Reagan’s clipped, deliberate voice denouncing protectionism in his 1987 radio address. But it cut out the part where he’d just imposed targeted sanctions on Japan for cheating a semiconductor deal.
“You see,” Reagan had said, “at first, 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.”²
The editing wasn’t dishonest. Just ruthless. Ontario’s ad agency, likely with Ford’s quiet blessing, had turned a former Republican demigod into a cudgel against the party’s current patriarch. It didn’t even have to mention Trump by name. The juxtaposition was the message. Reagan: clear-eyed, cool-headed, pragmatic. Trump: thin-skinned, bellicose, and allergic to history.