OTTAWA — President Donald Trump abruptly halted “all trade negotiations” with Canada late Thursday night over an ad that enlisted the voice of Ronald Reagan to oppose U.S. tariffs. Ontario Premier Doug Ford predicted earlier this week that the president would not be “too happy” with the 60-second spot his province produced to warn Americans that Trump’s tariffs could ultimately kill their jobs. “The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts. TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A. Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.” Earlier in the evening, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation hit back at the ad, saying it “misrepresents” Reagan’s presidential radio address on April 25, 1987, which was focused on free and fair trade. The foundation said the Government of Ontario “did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks” and that it is reviewing its legal options. “We encourage you to watch President Reagan’s unedited video on our YouTube channel.” The offices of Prime Minister Mark Carney and Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said they would not be commenting on Thursday, but they would likely have more to say on Friday. “The commercial uses an unedited excerpt from one of President Reagan’s public addresses, which is available through public domain,” a spokesperson for Ford said in an email to CBC News. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “The quote of former President Ronald Reagan was recognizing that ultimately somebody pays the tariff — and it’s the consumer,” Carney said when asked about it during an interview last week with Toronto’s RED-FM. “The company passes it on, the price goes up eventually, and you pay the cost of the tariff.” Trump has imposed double-digit tariffs on Canada’s steel, aluminum, auto, lumber and copper sectors. The president has said he is open to renegotiating the United States–Mexico–Canada Free Trade Agreement, but has also left open the possibility of abandoning the framework altogether. Carney, a former central bank governor in Canada and Britain, continued: “As an economist, I say that if somebody is trading fairly, it’s better not to have tariffs between those countries.” The prime minister noted that Trump’s White House is committed to tariffs. “I don’t agree with their policy, but I recognize that is their policy, and I don’t expect it to change.”LeBlanc and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had a meeting scheduled for this week, an official familiar with the trade negotiations told POLITICO. They were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter. It’s unclear if the two had met, or if the Liberal government received a heads-up. Carney was previously blindsided by the president in June when Trump halted trade negotiations over Canada’s then-Digital Services Tax. Negotiations resumed days later when Carney’s government agreed to rescind the tax, which would have cost U.S. tech companies like Amazon and Google billions of dollars. Carney said earlier in the day Thursday that he speaks “frequently” with Trump, but couldn’t reach him to bet on the World Series, which kicks off Friday with the Toronto Blue Jays up against the Los Angeles Dodgers. “I think he’s afraid to make a bet,” Carney said, smiling while attending a Jays practice in Toronto. “He hasn’t returned my call yet on the bet. I’m ready. We’re ready to make a bet with the U.S.”White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that Trump isn’t a big gambler. The Ontario ad has aired in major markets, including D.C., and during the Toronto Blue Jays’ games. “We’re going to repeat that message to every Republican district there is right across the entire country,” Ford said last week before the ad launched. Reagan’s address warned of the long-term economic perils of tariffs on foreign imports sold to Americans as a protectionist policy and explained they were imposed to sort a particular problem — not to begin a trade war. “But over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American, worker and consumer,” Reagan narrates in the ad. “High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down and millions of people lose their jobs.” China’s embassy in Washington notably used the same Reagan clip to troll Trump’s global tariffs when the China-U.S. trade war heated up in the spring. “I do believe that everybody’s too smart for that,” Trump said Tuesday after catching the anti-tariffs spot. Carney and Trump will both be in Malaysia and South Korea to attend ASEAN and APEC, with Carney scheduled to leave for Asia Friday morning.

President Donald Trump released a second wave of letters sent to U.S. trading partners in Asia, Africa and Europe on Wednesday, continuing the administration’s roll-out of new tariff rates on imports from nearly every country in the world that are due to go into force Aug. 1. The Philippines is the largest, economically, of the six countries that received a letter Wednesday, sending $14.1 billion in goods to the U.S. last year. But that still pales in comparison to top U.S. trading partners like the European Union and China. The new tariff rates threatened in the letters Trump shared Wednesday are similar to those he announced on what the White House dubbed “Liberation Day” in early April, with small adjustments. The Philippines’ tariff rate, for instance, increased from 17 percent to 20 percent, while Moldova’s decreased from 31 percent to 25 percent and Iraq’s from 39 percent to 30 percent. The other recipients of the letters Trump shared Wednesday include Brunei, Algeria and Libya. In a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Trump told the reporters his tariff-setting letters were in lieu of negotiating deals with many countries. “I just want you to know a letter means a deal. We can’t meet with 200 countries. … You have to do it in a more general way. “ The release of the latest batch of letters came after Trump signed an executive order Monday officially extending the deadline — again — for his “reciprocal” tariffs on nearly 60 trading partners, with rates ranging between 10 and 50 percent. Those duties briefly went into effect April 9 before the president suspended them until July 9. Monday’s order pushed that date to Aug. 1. Trump said Monday that the new deadline is “firm, but not 100 percent firm.” But the following day he vowed in a post on Truth Social that the Aug. 1 deadline is final. “TARIFFS WILL START BEING PAID ON AUGUST 1, 2025. There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change,” Trump wrote. “No extensions will be granted.” The latest update comes after Trump unveiled letters to 14 foreign governments Monday — 10 of them from Asia, triggering frustration and disbelief among recipients in the region. The Philippines, which received a letter on Wednesday, is another Southeast Asian country that is central to U.S. efforts to expand its economic influence and counter China. The 20 percent rate Trump is threatening to impose on exports from the Philippines is the same level Vietnam received as the result of a framework deal it struck with the Trump administration. Hanoi, which exported $136 billion worth of goods to the United States last year, initially faced a potential tariff of 46 percent, per Trump’s April announcement. The United States imported $7.5 billion worth of goods from Iraq last year; $2.4 billion from Algeria; $1.5 billion from Libya; $238 million from Brunei; and $136 million from Moldova.

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s rules on content moderation, digital competition and artificial intelligence are not up for negotiation with the U.S., the European Commission’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen says. Virkkunen drew a line in the sand in an interview with POLITICO just ahead of a new round of talks between EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Thursday. The two sides were reported to be inching closer to a deal that includes how U.S. tech companies are treated under the EU’s Digital Markets Act. “The [Digital Services Act], the [Digital Markets Act] and the AI Act of course, these are very important rules for us to make sure that we have trustworthy technologies,” Virkkunen said. “So, this is not part of trade negotiations from our side.” The rules are not up for negotiation because they are “based on our European values,” Virkkunen underlined. The Trump administration and U.S. tech executives have pushed back strongly against the EU’s tech rules in recent months, arguing that the Digital Services Act would allow Americans to be censored, and that the Digital Markets Act unfairly targets U.S. companies. Washington has also called for the EU’s AI Act to be paused, a demand that is now gaining traction among European government officials and several EU tech executives. Virkkunen also rebuffed the framing of EU tech fines as “tariffs,” saying the Commission is not “looking for fines” and that the penalties are meant to force companies to comply. The EU’s tech chief also indicated that the Commission is proceeding full steam ahead with its ongoing probes under the bloc’s Digital Services Act, and promised that several of them will reach fruition soon. “There are so many investigations in the pipeline that we are also able to come to conclusions with many of them in the coming weeks and months,” she said. The most anticipated probe concerns Elon Musk’s X. The platform was found last summer to be in preliminary breach of the EU’s content moderation rules regarding dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers. Virkkunen declined to comment on whether it would now be easier for the Commission to wrap up the probe and issue a fine against X and Musk, given that the tech billionaire has fallen out of favor with U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump didn’t rule out deporting Musk on Tuesday. “When we are investigating the platforms, it’s based [on] evidence and based [on] our Digital Services Act, and not [on] who’s the owner,” Virkkunen said.

LONDON — In a world blighted by tariffs and increasing protectionism, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is starting to realize that teamwork really is the only way to make his free trade dream a reality. “I do think that it’s [a] difficult environment, but there are significant opportunities if we’re agile about it, if we understand the world we’re living in, and get ahead of the curve,” Starmer told businesses in Westminster on Thursday as he set out the U.K.’s first Trade Strategy since Brexit. While underscoring the importance of trade deals with the likes of India and the U.S., Starmer hinted at a more multilateral approach to trade policy. “I think we should also talk to like-minded countries, because they recognize that the world is changing,” he said. “I’ve been talking to the leaders in Japan, in Singapore, in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, about how we, the U.K., can trade in an easier and better way with them and whether we as a group of countries can trade with other countries in an easier and better way.” The countries mentioned are all members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), an Asia-Pacific trading bloc which the U.K. joined in December. ASIA-PACIFIC BLOC ‘MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER’ Starmer’s words were borne out in the government’s new trade strategy, where the U.K. committed to working alongside partners and allies to negotiate and agree an “ambitious agenda for future plurilateral agreements.” It describes the role of groupings such as CPTPP as “more important than ever in the current global context.” “We will use CPTPP as a platform to support the wider multilateral and plurilateral system, and to encourage deeper trading relationships between countries and groupings committed to liberal rules-based trade,” the strategy said. At a recent meeting in Korea, CPTPP members committed to work with the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — a regional grouping of 10 states in Southeast Asia — to liberalize global trade in light of “significant challenges” facing the international trading environment.   This could include discussions on areas such as tariffs, digital trade, rules of origin, supply chains, customs administration and innovation, the Trade Strategy said, adding that these dialogues could “create a platform for other trade-focused economies to participate, so broadening our network of collaborative partnerships.” In another sign of the U.K.’s commitment to a multilateral trading system, the U.K. announced it would join the World Trade Organization’s Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA), an alternative system for resolving WTO disputes. The U.K. had previously dragged its heels on signing up to the mechanism. “Joining MPIA sends a clear signal that the U.K. is committed to the principles of free and fair trade and that we will champion progress wherever and whenever necessary,” the strategy said.