Ontario will air tariff ads that anger Trump during World Series

The government of Ontario, Canada, will air a television ad during the first two games of the World Series that infuriated U.S. President Donald Trump, the province’s premier, Doug Ford, said Friday.

The ad uses edited clips of former Republican President Ronald Reagan to criticize Trump’s trade policies.

The ad angered Trump so much that he announced on Thursday a halt to trade negotiations with Canada, one of the United States’ largest trading partners.

Trump accused the Canadian government — which did not sponsor the ad — of what he called “egregious behavior” aimed at “interfering with the decision of the United States Supreme Court and other courts” on the tariffs.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next month in a case challenging numerous tariffs imposed by Trump.

Game 1 of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays will be played Friday night, with Game 2 scheduled for Saturday.

Ford said he asked his team to continue airing the campaign, which features images of American workers and households set to a recording of a speech former President Ronald Reagan gave in 1987.

“Our intention has always been to start a conversation about the kind of economy Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses,” Ford wrote in an article on X. “We have accomplished our goal, reaching the American public at the highest levels.”

“I have asked my team to continue delivering our message to Americans over the weekend so we can air our advertising during the first two games of the World Series,” Ford wrote.

However, he added that following discussions with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, it was decided that Ontario would “suspend its US advertising campaign effective Monday so that trade negotiations can resume.”

What Ford didn’t say was that between Friday and Monday, tens of millions of people would likely see the ad.

This year’s World Series is poised to draw a large audience.

Representatives for the White House and the Canadian prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Carney told reporters earlier Friday that his administration hoped to resume trade negotiations and “build on that progress when the American people are ready to have those discussions.”

The ad has been running nationally in the United States since at least October 20, when it appeared during Game 7 of the American League Championship Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners.

That match alone averaged 15.03 million viewers in the United States and Canada, The New York Times reported this week.

The Blue Jays’ victory propelled them into the World Series for the first time since 1993, ensuring that Canada will remain at the forefront of millions of baseball viewers’ minds at least until next week.

The ad edited Reagan’s 1987 speech, using authentic lines but rearranging them.

The ad begins with Reagan saying, “When someone says, ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it seems like they’re making a patriotic gesture by protecting American products and jobs, and sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time.”

“But in the long run, such trade barriers harm all American workers and consumers,” he continues in the ad. “Then the worst happens: markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries close, and millions lose their jobs.”

The former president was a strong advocate of free trade. But the point of the speech was to explain why—despite his strong aversion to tariffs—Reagan had recently imposed import duties on certain Japanese goods.

U.S. and Canadian businesses have been hit by Trump’s tariffs on goods entering the northern border, although Canada has felt a much greater impact.

The Canadian economy had begun to show signs of weakness well before Trump came to power.

But the country is now “on the brink of recession,” economists at the research group Oxford Economics wrote in a note this month.

They highlighted “the troubling environment of continued trade policy uncertainty, which weighs heavily on confidence, investment and hiring.”

However, Oxford experts believe the country’s economic situation will improve next year following renegotiations of the CUSMA treaty, which they say should result in the removal of most tariffs between the two countries.