Trump’s Fury at the Ontario Ad is All About the Supreme Court

“High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars,” Reagan said in the remarks. “The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So, soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs.”

The ad was clearly meant as a critique of the Trump administration’s trade policy, and Trump—who gets reliably worked up any time the television isn’t nice to him—reacted accordingly. “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,” he claimed on his personal social-media website. “Now the United States is able to defend itself against high and overbearing Canadian Tariffs (and those from the rest of the World as well!).”

Trump also quoted from a statement by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library that denounced the ad. “Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD,” Trump continued. “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.”