Canada Does A Mean And Nasty To Donald Trump By Quoting Ronald Reagan Accurately

Oh, Canada.

We were just thinking the other day that it has been a while since America’s pissbaby president had a public blow-up with our friendly Canadian neighbors. We can’t recall a recent instance of any talk about alleged fentanyl smuggling, or Canada becoming our 51st state, or whether America might send troops to seize the world’s Montreal bagel reserves or whatever other delusions might have run through the runny egg that is Donald Trump’s brain the last time the sight of a bottle of maple syrup in the White House mess sent him meandering down a bunch of incoherent verbal dead-ends.

That all ended on Thursday night, when President Brain Damage announced via his vanity social media site TruthSocial that he is terminating all of America’s trade negotiations with Canada.

What did those hosers up north do that sent Trump into a diaper-filling rage? They accurately quoted Ronald Reagan saying that tariffs are bad, the Molson-swilling bastards.

The trouble started with a TV ad that started airing in America recently. Produced by the provincial government of Ontario, the ad takes excerpts from a radio address Reagan gave in 1987 in which he extolled the virtues of free trade and described tariffs as a drag on American businesses. It’s a pretty effective ad, we thought:

Pretty standard stuff! And not wrong, as historians and economists and economic data itself have been screaming at Orange Julius Caesar for pretty much the last decade. Particularly the part about how high tariffs can trigger retaliation and “fierce trade wars” from other countries. Other nations have been slapping retaliatory tariffs on American products, which pisses Trump off because he’s a bully who thinks it is illegal when the people he’s bullying punch him back.

Behold, the wrath:

We suspect the timing had much more to do with the ad airing during the baseball playoffs, when lots of Americans have been tuning in to watch Canada’s only team, the Toronto Blue Jays, roll into the World Series. We doubt very much if Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, is paying close attention to the tariffs case being argued in front of America’s Supreme Court next week. Although who knows, maybe he loves listening to the conservative justices in real time as they make up novel interpretations of the Constitution to generate the partisan results they want.

Trump also tweeted out a statement from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. The statement is, to put it baldly, bullshit:

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute learned that the Government of Ontario, Canada, created an ad campaign using selective audio and video of President Ronald Reagan delivering his “Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade,” dated April 25, 1987. The ad misrepresents the Presidential Radio Address, and the Government of Ontario did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks.

First of all, the government of Ontario does not need permission to use clips of a 40-year-old presidential radio address. Those are in the public domain, they are not subject to copyright law. Ontario did not need to run it by the lawyers first.

In fact, at the beginning of the video of Reagan’s speech, there is a note requesting anyone using the video put in a credit reading “Courtesy Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.” Which the Ontario ad did.

It’s funny that the Reagan Library (fun fact from your Editrix: Your Editrix’s mom got arrested there once for refusing to protest in the “free speech zone” some miles from the library and across the holler, if Simi Valley had hollers) also encouraged people to listen to Reagan’s entire speech on their YouTube channel, because the entire speech backs up the Canadian ad’s interpretation.

The gist is exactly what we (and the Ontario government) said: Tariffs are bad, free trade is good because it brings jobs and prosperity, other countries agree with Reagan. Whether that has been borne out by 40 years of free trade might be subject to debate, but that he believed it isn’t.

In fact, Reagan even mentions that he recently told Canada’s then-leaders that trading partners “have an obligation to promote the prosperity and economic development that only free trade can bring.” That message was “warmly received.”

So there.

Either the people who run the Reagan Library are huge idiots (very likely), or they are trying to undercut Trump’s anti-free trade message without making it obvious because they are cowards who don’t want to piss him off. Very possible! Reagan was big on free trade, certainly the people who run his damn library would know that.

Trump wasn’t done. He went on:

And on:

And on:

“Actually, HE LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY.” Listen, President Poopypants, putting it in ALL CAPS does not change history.

Trump’s advisers spent Friday morning trying to cover for him by explaining that the president had been up super-late and hadn’t had his nap and really wanted a juice box:

The president is not “frustrated” by the negotiations, he’s frustrated because Ronald Reagan made him look bad from beyond the grave. Which is the first time Ronald Reagan has managed to do that for anyone.

For their part, Canada’s leaders are shrugging and saying, in essence, Well, that’s Trump, what are you going to do. Guess we’ll go negotiate trade deals with other huge partners like China. President Deals strikes again!

[TruthSocial / YouTube / YouTube]