WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump withdrew from trade talks with Canada Thursday night, furious over the Ontario government’s “fake” television ad that quoted former U.S. President Ronald Reagan from 38 years ago criticizing tariffs, Trump’s favorite economic tool.
of Advertisement audio excerpt From April 25, 1987 wireless address In it, President Reagan said, “Over the long term, these trade barriers hurt all American workers and consumers.”
President Trump attacked the ad on Truth Social Friday, writing, “Canada cheated and got caught!! President Ronald Reagan fraudulently received an expensive bribed ad saying he didn’t like tariffs, when in fact he loved tariffs for our country and national security.”
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute criticized the ad, which ran on Thursday Night X, saying it “misrepresents the President’s Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade, dated April 25, 1987.”
President Trump called the ad fake, but President Reagan’s words were real. But context is missing.
Let’s look at the facts here.
President Reagan came to office at a time when there was growing concern about Japan’s growing economic power. created an address A week after he himself imposed tariffs on Japanese semiconductors. He was trying to explain the decision, but it seemed to go against his reputation as a free trader.
In fact, President Reagan didn’t like tariffs. He often criticized government policies, including tariffs and other protectionist measures that impeded free trade, and spent much of his 1987 radio speech arguing against tariffs.
“High tariffs inevitably lead to foreign retaliation and fierce trade wars,” he said. “The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition.” So people soon stop buying because the price is set artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management. And then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse. Businesses and industries will be closed. And millions of people will lose their jobs. ”
But Reagan’s policies were more complex than his rhetoric.
In addition to taxing Japanese semiconductors, President Reagan also taxed large motorcycles from Japan to protect Harley-Davidson. He also strongly persuaded Japanese automakers to accept “voluntary” restrictions on exports to the United States, ultimately encouraging them to set up factories in the Midwest and South.
And it pressured other countries to devalue their currencies in order to make U.S. exports more competitive on world markets.
Robert Lighthizer, the Reagan trade official who served as President Trump’s top trade negotiator from 2017 to 2021, wrote in his 2023 memoir that “President Reagan made a distinction between free trade in theory and free trade in practice.”
In 1988, analysts at the liberal Cato Institute called Reagan ” Most protectionist president since Herbert Hoover He is the protectionist heavyweight champion. ”
But Reagan was no trade warrior. He spoke about semiconductor tariffs in an April 1987 radio speech, saying that he had been forced to impose semiconductor tariffs because Japan was not complying with trade agreements, saying, “Such tariffs, trade barriers, and restrictions of all kinds are anathema to me.”
Trump, on the other hand, has no such reservations. He argues that tariffs can protect American industry, bring manufacturing back to the United States and raise money for the Treasury. Since returning to the White House in January, he has imposed double-digit tariffs on nearly every country on the planet, targeting specific products such as autos, steel and pharmaceuticals.
The average effective tariff rate in the U.S. rose from about 2.5% at the beginning of 2025 to 18%, the highest since 1934, according to Yale University’s Budget Institute.
Trump, who proudly calls himself the “Tariff Man,” has been challenged by businesses and states for overstepping his authority because of his avid use of import taxes.The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose taxes, including tariffs, but lawmakers have gradually ceded significant trade policy power to the White House, and the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case early next month.
President Trump claimed on Thursday that the Canadian ad was aimed at “interfering with the decisions of the United States Supreme Court and other courts.”
