Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

"It was the Canadian decision to initiate the negotiations to have the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement. That's not something the U.S. could propose to Canada because of fears that it might provoke questions among Canadians about the U.S.'s intentions. But when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said that Canada would be open to something like a free-trade agreement, it was President Regan who immediately recognized this as a historic opportunity and went with it."

"And, despite some negotiating difficulties, they did reach that agreement in the late 1980s. Even before Reagan was elected in 1979, he had been talking about establishing free trade in the Americas from, as he put it, Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic Circle."

"So he had already broached this idea of reducing the barriers to a free flow of goods within the Western Hemisphere."

"Canada was the first to pick up on that."

Doug Irwin, professor of economics, Dartmouth College -- former staffer on Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers 

U.S. President Donald Trump, left, abruptly cancelled ongoing trade negotiations earlier this month with Prime Minister Mark Carney, right, citing an Ontario government anti-tariff ad. (Evelyn Hockstein, Blair Gable/Reuters)

"I like him a lot but what they did was wrong."

"[Carney] was very nice and he apologized for what they did with the commercial because it was a false commercial."

"It was the exact opposite: Ronald Reagan loved tariffs, and they tried to make it look the other way."

"And he [Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney] did apologize and I appreciate it." 

U.S. President Donald J. Trump

 

"As we say, mission accomplished ... They're talking about it in the U.S. and they weren't talking about it before I put the ad on. So I'm glad Ronald Reagan was a free trader."

"I'm not American, but like millions of Canadians I admire Reagan and his commitment to free trade, free markets and closer ties between our two countries."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford 

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Prime Minister Mark Carney and his chief of staff, Marc-André Blanchard, were both aware of the Ontario government's anti-tariff TV advertisement. U.S. President Donald Trump said he halted trade talks with Canada because of the ad. Still from video/CBC

 

According to U.S. President Donald Trump he received an apology from Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney, for the anti-tariff television advertisement produced by the Ontario government that featured former U.S. President Ronald Reagan speaking of his support for free trade and his rejection of the harms caused by tariffs. The ad was to have been aired during the World series playoffs between the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers in a bid to attract the attention of Americans to the reality that their current president's tariffs on Canada are harmful to economic, social and political relations between the two countries. 

 

The advertisements infuriated the choleric and vengeful President Trump, and he immediately reacted by putting a halt to the current trade-and-tariff talks between the two countries, said to have been reaching a final decision-making that Mr. Trump might agree with, the results of which would be expected to be somewhat less harmful to Canada's future economic prospects in its trade with with its largest trading partner, while still satisfying the American President's 'America first' agenda. Not only were the talks cut off, but an additional across-the-board tariff on all Canadian goods was threatened as punishment.

 

Yet, despite gloating that the unctuously servile Mr. Carney had apologized to Mr. Trump's satisfaction, when he was asked by reporters on Air Force One whether negotiations would then be set to resume, he responded with a curt 'No'. Despite which, he praised Mr. Carney, claiming between them a "very good relationship", as he would with any other world leader who caters to his spontaneous whims. 

 

The president and the prime minister were both present at a dinner ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-Operation Summit (APEC) on Wednesday. An opportunity to re-cement the tenuous relationship faltering on the officiously incendiary statements of a man  holding the most influential political office on the globe whose mercurial temperament sends shivers of apprehension down the pliable spines of most other politicians. 

 

United States President Donald Trump looks towards Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as they raise their glasses during a toast at a working dinner in Gyeongju, South Korea on Wednesday, Oct 29, 2025. Photo by Adrian Wyld /The Canadian Press

 

Ontario's premier is clearly not one of them. He has taken umbrage to the American president's charges and decisions, vowing that he will fight back at the clearly unfair and solely-U.S.-advantageous moves that leaves all other countries it does business with at clear disadvantages of monumental economic proportions affecting employment, national GDP, political-economic security and international relations, all endangered by the ego of an ill-intentioned global player.

 

An Angus Reid poll newly released indicates that 56 percent of Canadians either strongly agree or agree with Premier Ford's decision to run the ad, irrespective of the fury of the American president. Granted, the ad was pulled after the World Series final game concluded. But a wide audience was reached, among them many Americans who find their president's obsession with 'striking a deal' through bullying, threatening tactics repulsive to their values of fairness and their tolerance for good relations between neighbours. 

 

The ads had aired during Games 1 and 2 of the World Series in part or in full, with Premier Ford speaking of the ad as the "most successful ad in the history of North America", sounding in fact, somewhat like President Trump. 

 

Will Smith of the Los Angeles Dodgers forces Isiah Kiner-Falefa of the Toronto Blue Jays out at home plate. (Getty Images)

  

"We're an energy super-power, with the oil, gas and electricity needed to power America's economic growth, including from Ontario's growing fleet of nuclear power plants and the first small modular nuclear reactor in the G-7."

"We're America's No.1 customer, buying more America-made cars than any other country on Earth."

"In 2023 Ontario on its own was the largest trading partner for 17 states and second largest for another 11."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford