Oct. 25 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Saturday said he will add a 10% tariff to Canadian goods after the airing of a controversial ad featuring former President Ronald Reagan during the World Series.
As the Toronto Blue Jays were on their way to winning the opening game by an 11-4 score over the Los Angeles Dodgers, an anti-tariffs ad featuring edited comments made by Reagan regarding his tariffs on Japanese goods.
The ad spurred Trump to follow through on an earlier threat to increase the tariff on Canadian goods exported to the United States.
“Canada was caught red-handed, putting up a fraudulent advertisement on Ronald Reagan’s speech on tariffs,” Trump said Saturday in a Truth Social post.
“The sole purpose of this fraud was Canada’s hope that the United States Supreme Court will come to their ‘rescue’ on tariffs that they have used for years to hurt the United States,” the president said.
“Ronald Reagan loved tariffs for the purpose of national security and the economy, but Canada said he didn’t,” Trump added.
The president said Canada was supposed to immediately cease airing the ad and remove it, but “they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a fraud.”
“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,” Trump added.
Reagan made the comments during an April 25, 1987, radio address to defend his tariff policy, but the Ontario government used and edited them without permission from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.
The Ontario ad runs for a minute and edits the former president’s comments, which Trump and others have called “misleading.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the ad’s intent is to “initiate a conversation” with U.S. officials and to reach “U.S. audiences at the highest levels,” CBS News reported.
The U.S. imposes a 10% tariff on Canadian energy, energy resources and potash and 35% for all other products that are not exempted by the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, according to the ReedSmith Trump 2.0 Tariff Tracker.