The U.S. will impose an additional 10% tariff on Canada, President Trump said on Saturday, a punitive measure in response to an ad campaign that he said misrepresented comments by former President Ronald Reagan.
“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 posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
The ad campaign, released by the Canadian province of Ontario, uses audio from a 1987 radio address delivered by Reagan, in which he explains that despite putting tariffs on Japanese semiconductors that year, he was committed to free-trade policies. While tariffs can look patriotic, Reagan said, “over the long run such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer,” lead to “fierce trade wars” and result in lost jobs.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in an appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” called the ad “a kind of propaganda against U.S. citizens.”
“What was the purpose of that other than to sway public opinion?” he asked.
Trump had threatened to cut off trade talks with Canada on Thursday over the ad, claiming it misrepresents Reagan’s comments, and was being used to influence the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of a hearing on the administration’s tariffs next month. In response, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that he would call off the campaign, effective Monday. But the ad still ran on Friday night during the first game of the World Series—a fact Trump noted in his Saturday post, saying that the ad “was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY.”
The ad ran again Saturday night during the second game of the World Series.
U.S. tariffs on Canada currently stand at 35%, with energy products at 10%, but goods that comply with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, are carved-out of the duties, meaning that about 85% of Canadian exports to the U.S. come in tariff-free. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has removed most of the retaliatory tariffs that his predecessor Justin Trudeau imposed.
The White House didn’t respond to a question on when the new tariffs take effect, if USMCA-compliant goods would be exempted on the additional levies, and what authority the U.S. is using to impose these tariffs.
“As the Prime Minister said yesterday, we stand ready to build on the progress made in constructive discussions with American counterparts over the course of recent weeks,” said Canada’s minister in charge of Canada-U.S. trade, Dominic LeBlanc, in a post on X.
A spokeswoman for Ford had no immediate comment.
The U.S. is Canada’s largest trading partner and Canada is the second largest for the U.S., with bilateral trade in goods reaching nearly $762 billion in 2024. Goods not included in the USMCA include many agricultural and energy goods.
Trump first posted about the ad on Thursday night after the Reagan Foundation released a statement claiming that the ad misrepresented the president’s comments and that the audio was used without its permission. Trump called the ad “FAKE” at the time and on Saturday claimed that Reagan “LOVED Tariffs for purposes of National Security and the Economy, but Canada said he didn’t!”
The Reagan Foundation hasn’t said what it found inaccurate about the ad and a spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment on the new tariffs. While Reagan’s speech acknowledges an action to put tariffs on Japanese semiconductors, most of the address is devoted to explaining why tariffs—especially broadly applied—lead to bad outcomes.
“In certain select cases, like the Japanese semiconductors, we’ve taken steps to stop unfair practices against American products,” Reagan says in the address, “but we’ve still maintained our basic, long-term commitment to free trade and economic growth.”
On Friday, Carney told reporters before getting onto a plane bound for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Kuala Lumpur that he remains open to keeping talks going with the U.S. Both he and Trump will attend a working dinner for Asia-Pacific leaders Wednesday in South Korea and are likely to see each other there, a senior U.S. official said.
