Trump says Carney apologized for Ontario’s anti-tariff ad

Donald Trump comments on his relationship with PM Mark Carney amid fallout from an Ontario tariff ad featuring Ronald Reagan.

U.S. President Donald Trump says Prime Minister Mark Carney apologized for an anti-tariff commercial that led the president to cut off trade talks earlier this month.

“He was very nice. He apologized for what they did with the commercial,” said Trump aboard Air Force One.

When was asked if he was planning to restart trade negotiations with Canada, the president responded: “No, but I have a very good relationship. I like him a lot, but you know, what they did was wrong.”

The ad featured former U.S. president Ronald Reagan saying tariffs “hurt every American” in a 1987 radio address.

Ontario announced its plan to run the ad on Oct. 14, with Ontario Premier Doug Ford saying, “We’re going to launch a $75-million ad and we’re going to repeat that message at every Republican district there is.”

Ten days later, Trump announced he’d end trade negotiations with Canada after Ford said the ad would run on U.S. networks throughout the Oct. 25-26 weekend that Games 1 and 2 of the World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers was played.

Trump subsequently said he would slap an additional 10 per cent tariff on Canada.

“Canada was caught, red handed, putting up a fraudulent advertisement on Ronald Reagan’s Speech on Tariffs,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now.”

What the Reagan Foundation said about the ad

After the ad aired, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute clarified on social media what exactly the former president said.

It claims that Ontario “created an ad campaign using selective audio and video of President Ronald Reagan delivering his ‘Radio Address to the National on Free and Fair Trade’… The Government of Ontario did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks.”

The foundation said it would review its legal options.

In response to the foundation’s statement, Trump said on Truth Social that Canada “fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs.”

Ontario’s ad took excerpts from the speech, out of chronological order, which focused on foreign trade. Following Trump’s pushback, Ford doubled down, saying he achieved his goal with the ad.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, the Ontario premier said that the message received between $300 million and $400 million in earned media.

His office says they originally expected to garner one billion impressions through earned media and social media, but they ultimately reached an estimated 11.4 billion impressions.

“We generated a conversation that wasn’t happening in the U.S. Now, every single local media, every large media, medium-sized media in the U.S. is talking about it,” Ford said.

He also told reporters that Carney knew of the ad before it aired, but a federal government source could not confirm if the prime minister saw it, adding “they were not involved in the production or distribution of the ad.”