Canada’s Carney says he apologised to Trump over Reagan anti-tariff ad

Mark Carney, the country’s prime minister, apologizes to Donald Trump for an anti-tariff advertisement that stifled trade talks between the two nations.

Carney made it clear that he is in charge of negotiating Canada’s ties with its biggest trading partner during a press conference held in South Korea on Saturday at the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

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“I apologized to the president,” I said. The Canadian province of Ontario produced the advertisement, the prime minister claimed. “The president was offended.

In my capacity as prime minister, I am in charge of our relationship with the US president, and the federal government is in charge of our international relations with the US government, Carney continued.

“So, things happen, we mix up the good with the bad, and I apologised.”

Trump’s global tariffs push, which saw him impose heavy duties on his nation’s northern neighbor, have caused the US-Canada relationship to deteriorate over the past year.

The already tense situation was worsened by Ontario’s commercial, which featured a speech from former US President Ronald Reagan from 1980 and in which Reagan claimed tariffs could cause “fierce trade wars” and unemployment.

The Trump administration halted trade talks with Canada because of the advertisement, which Washington claimed lied about Reagan’s views and sought to unfairly influence a looming US Supreme Court ruling regarding Trump’s tariff policy.

After the commercial wasn’t immediately removed from US televisions, the US government announced an additional 10% levy on Canadian goods last weekend.

Trump admitted to not going back to negotiations with Canada on Friday despite receiving an apology from Carney.

The US president said, “I have a very good relationship with him, and I like him a lot. But what they did was wrong.”

Because the commercial was a fake, “He]Carney] was very nice and thanked them.” Ronald Reagan admired tariffs and made an effort to turn things around.

Reagan’s speech was actually excerpted from the Ontario commercial, but the statements were presented in a different way than they had been delivered.