Doug Ford’s ad on tariffs running in the United States wasn’t wrong, it wasn’t illegal, but he may have done the right thing by pausing the campaign.
The Ontario Premier’s ad using the words of Ronald Reagan against the idea of tariffs angered Donald Trump so much that he cancelled any future trade talks with Canada late Thursday night via a post to his Truth Social account.
That caused problems for Prime Minister Mark Carney who left Friday for a series of summits in Asia where he will interact with Trump – so, on Friday, Ford announced a future pause to his campaign, but not yet.
“Our intention was always to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses. We’ve achieved our goal, having reached U.S. audiences at the highest levels,” Ford said in a statement.
“I’ve directed my team to keep putting our message in front of Americans over the weekend so that we can air our commercial during the first two World Series games.”
The decision to pause the campaign at Carney’s request was as purposeful as the decision to run the ads through Monday.
A source on Ford’s team said the conversations between Ford and Carney late Thursday and early Friday were not tense and that “everyone wants to get to the best outcome.” That is why Ford agreed to pull back the ads, eventually.
The question is, were they effective or were they a failure?
In my initial assessment, I assumed that with Trump cancelling trade talks, the ads were a failure, they didn’t achieve their goal of fixing the tariff problem. Sun columnist Warren Kinsella was the first person to put in my ear that the ads may have been working, prompting people to contact Trump and express concern.
Whether they were working or not, here is what I believe happened.
Trump became aware of the ad – there is always a TV on around him – and he complained about the ad to White House staff. The White House staff then called the Ronald Reagan Foundation and leaned on them to denounce the ad, at which point they made false claims about misrepresenting Reagans views on tariffs and said no permission had been sought to use the material.
No need legally to seek permission to use Reagan’s words
Under American law, there is no need to seek permission to use the words Reagan said. Anything created by a public servant in the course of their job is, under American law, public domain – meaning there was no need to seek permission.
Despite the claims by Trump and the Reagan Foundation, there was no attempt in the ad to misrepresent Reagan’s view on tariffs – to claim so is to detach from reality. Reagan has a decades-long public record of being opposed to tariffs in general, but being willing to choose them when necessary.
That is in stark contrast to the current view in the White House where tariffs are seen as essential and effective.
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
The most likely reason this ad became the flashpoint isn’t the ad itself but how talks have been going overall. Trump’s director of his National Economic Council declined to comment on the ad campaign but did say that negotiations with Canada have not been going well.
“The frustration has built up over time. I’ve been involved in some of these negotiations and the Canadians have been very difficult to negotiate with,” Kevin Hassett said. “And you look at all the countries around the world that we’ve made deals with, and the fact that we are now making a deal with Mexico separately reveals that it’s not just about one ad, there’s frustrations that have built up.”
Frustrations have clearly built up on both sides, some of that is on us as Canadians, that’s not a story many Canadians want to hear. The idea we would dismantle trade talks over an ad that is much more of a hug than a punch is fully on the American side.
Let’s get back to the table soon.
