Trump’s response came in two bursts: first on Truth Social, then at a hastily arranged press hit on the tarmac in Duluth. “Canada was caught, red-handed,” he fumed online, “putting up a fraudulent advertisement on Ronald Reagan’s Speech on Tariffs. The ad was FAKE. I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10%…”¹
By sunset, he’d cancelled trade talks with Ottawa entirely. The smell of burnt cheese curds lingered longer than expected that night in Windsor. In the dim light, Jason and his buddy Trevor watched the game spiral. Jays lost by five. The Reagan ad aired again in the eighth inning, quieter this time. No commentary. No laughter. Just curiosity, and the weird sensation of history folding in on itself.
“I thought Reagan was their guy,” Trevor said.
“He was,” Jason replied. “Then they met reality.”
In the glow of the TV, he watched Reagan’s voice bounce off the walls and said nothing more. **‘First, homegrown industries start relying on government protection… They stop competing and stop making the innovative changes they need to succeed in world markets.’**²
Back in 1987, Reagan had made the case that tariffs—unless surgically applied to punish cheating—were economic suicide. “They subsidize inefficiency and poor management,” he warned, “until people stop buying. Then markets collapse, and people lose their jobs.”
He wasn’t moralizing. He was reporting from the wreckage of the 1930s.
So when Premier Doug Ford rolled the dice on using that speech as a cross-border ad buy, the gamble wasn’t subtle. It was a high-stakes attempt to embarrass Trump during a volatile trade fight. Ford had already clashed with Ottawa over dairy quotas and softwood lumber; this was him punching up in a way that felt plausible, even patriotic.
When asked whether he expected backlash, Ford shrugged. “It’s a history lesson,” he said. “We’re just reminding people what conservative used to mean.”
Ford wasn’t alone in feeling that way. In fact, polling the following week showed over 70% of Canadians supported the ad. Even in some U.S. border towns—Buffalo, Erie, Detroit—local papers called it “a refreshing dose of ideological clarity.”
Maclean’s ran a quote that summed up the surreal inversion: **‘It’s like watching your childhood priest quoted in a PornHub video,’ one former GOP staffer said. ‘Surreal, but somehow deserved.’**⁷
But Trump didn’t see nuance. He saw betrayal. The ad had aired during two World Series games, hitting his base in a moment of sports-soaked patriotism. “It was to be taken down immediately,” he raged. “But they let it run, knowing it was a FRAUD.”¹
Enter Mark Carney.
The newly elected Canadian Prime Minister had nothing to do with the ad. In fact, by the time it aired, he’d already told Premier Ford not to run it. But after the damage was done—and after Trump nuked the summit—Carney flew to Seoul for an unrelated economic forum and ended up apologizing to Trump in a private hallway conversation over weak coffee and too many cameras.
“I did apologise to the president,” he told reporters. “I had advised the Premier not to go forward with the ad.”³