What was in the Reagan ad that caused the US-Canada trade negotiations to fail?

US President Donald Trump has said he will immediately halt all trade talks with Canada over an ad in which his predecessor Ronald Reagan said the tariffs “hurt every American”.

The ad, sponsored by the Canadian province of Ontario and released last week, contains excerpts from a 1987 address by Reagan that focused on foreign trade.

Trump called the ad “FAKE” while the Ronald Reagan Foundation said it “misrepresented” the former president’s address.

Although the one-minute ad includes only excerpts from the original, five-minute address, it does not change Reagan’s words. However, this changes the order in which he made the comments.

Below are the lines from advertisement in italics, followed by an explanation of how they appear (shown in bold) in the original address.

“When someone says ‘let’s put tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs.” And sometimes for a little while it works, but only for a little while.”

This is the opening line of the one-minute commercial. The words have not been changed.

But it wasn’t until about halfway through his inaugural address that Reagan uttered those lines.

The 1987 radio address – Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade – begins with Reagan saying that the Prime Minister of Japan will visit the White House and the “recent disagreements” over trade will be discussed. Reagan recently imposed tariffs on some Japanese goods over a trade agreement dispute.

By the time he reached the opening line of the ad, he had laid out his distaste for tariffs, described the “prosperity and economic development that only free trade can bring,” and said that high-tariff legislation made the Great Depression worse.

“In the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American, worker and consumer.”

In the ad, these words immediately follow the first line. Again, Reagan said those words.

In the original address, however, the two sentences are not connected. In fact, they are separated by more than a minute of speech, and the line “In the long run…” actually comes first.

After introducing the Japanese state visit, Reagan began to explain why he had recently imposed the tariffs.

He says in the original speech: “The imposition of such tariffs or trade barriers and restrictions of any kind are steps I do not want to take. And I will mention the sound economic reasons for doing so in a moment: that in the long run such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer.“

Reagan says some companies have been “engaging in unfair trade practices” and resisting an agreement with the US – and that this is therefore a “special case”.

This sets the tone for the rest of the address, which he devotes to clarifying his commitment to free trade and the dangers of high tariffs.

“High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation from foreign countries and spark fierce trade wars.

This is the third line of the ad, and again, these are Reagan’s words. But again, in the original speech they don’t follow directly from the previous line in the ad. About a minute separates them in the address.

In his 1987 speech, he said this line in the middle of his address while describing what he saw as the consequences of the customs. He says:

“What ends up happening is: First, domestic industries come to rely on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in global markets. And then, while all this is happening, something even worse happens.” High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and spark fierce trade wars.”

“Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries close, and millions of people lose their jobs.”

Reagan says this line after the last one — but the ad cuts out a few sentences that separate them.

Here’s the full move from one to the next in the original:

“High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation from foreign countries and spark fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition.

“So soon, with prices artificially inflated by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and mismanagement, people stop buying.” Then the worst happens: markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries close; and millions of people lose their jobs.”

“Awareness is growing all over the world that the way to prosperity for all nations is to reject protectionist legislation and encourage fair and free competition.”

Here the ad goes back about a minute – but the words are the same.

In the original, Reagan extolled the economic benefits of free trade and continued: “Now, this message of free trade is one that I delivered to the leaders of Canada a few weeks ago, and it was warmly received there. There is a growing realization throughout the world that the way to prosperity for all nations is to reject protectionist legislation and encourage fair and free competition.”

He then spoke of the “sound historical reasons” for this realization: “For those of us who lived through the Great Depression, the memory of the suffering it caused is deep and searing.”

He says experts believe the high-tariff legislation passed at the time “significantly deepened the depression and hindered economic recovery.”

“America’s jobs and growth are at stake.”

So Reagan ends his speech in both the address and the ad, regarding tariffs.

The final part of his speech is omitted from the ad – in which he says he is determined to “spare the American people the protectionist legislation that destroys prosperity” and criticizes opponents in Congress who “want to get a quick political advantage” and “forget” the millions of trade-related jobs.