On October 23, US President Donald Trump announced that he would end trade talks with Canada. The reason given by Mr. Trump was quite surprising: That was a reaction to a section of an advertisement released by the Canadian provincial government last week. This advertisement uses audio from a speech by the late US President Ronald Reagan, in which he criticized the imposition of tariffs on foreign goods.
In his 1987, Mr. Trump harshly said that tariffs harm all American workers and consumers and are a "swank" for fierce trade wars.
This advertisement has prompted backlash from the Ronald Reagan Foundation, saying it "stubborn" the speech and that the Ontario government did not allow the use of the audio.
On the evening of October 23, President Trump took to the social network Truth Social to strongly criticize the advertisement. "The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used the advertising section, which is considered fake, with the image of Ronald Reagan negatively saying about the tariffs," he wrote.
Mr. Trump accused the advertisement of interfering with the decisions of the US Supreme Court and other courts, while protecting tariffs as an important factor for the US economy and national security.
"Based on their serious behavior, all trade negotiations with Canada from now on will be ended," Trump said decisively.
Since Mr Trump took office, the centuries-long relationship between the US and Canada has been cracked by tensions over tariffs and Mr Trump's shocking statements. Canada's economy has been hit hard by Trump's high tariffs on cars, steel, aluminum, wood and energy - the country's main exports to the US.
However, trade tensions have shown signs of cooling down slightly in recent months, with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meeting Trump at the Oil Department earlier this month.
At that meeting, Mr. Trump joked about the "merger" of the two countries but also praised his counterpart as a "work of world-class leadership".
Canadian Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the two countries' negotiators had left the meeting with instructions to quickly reach agreements on steel, aluminum and energy.
That brief warm-up seems to have ended at least for now. Mr. Trump's latest statement was made in the context of the US-Mexico- Canada Agreement (USMCA) being reviewed next year.
