Reagan vs Trump: Trade Tariffs and US-Canada Negotiations Explained

Courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

President Donald Trump canceled trade talks with Canada on Thursday, citing an Ontario government advertisement that quoted former President Reagan’s 1987 address on fair trade.

Trump said the advertisement that aired in the United States was “fake,” although in reality it was edited using real fragments from Reagan’s five-minute speech ahead of his meeting with the Prime Minister of Japan.

CNN analyzed key excerpts from this speech. The quotes from the advertisement are highlighted.

As the context shows, the Reagan statements used by the Ontario government were actually in the context of raising tariffs against Japan – not a general critique of the idea of tariffs. This underscores that Reagan sometimes used tariffs. He emphasized not only free trade but also fair trade.

In this case he accused Japan of violating the 1986 agreement and allowing chip dumping into markets that harmed American manufacturers’ ability to compete. He imposed 100% tariffs on Japanese laptops, handheld tools, and televisions, among other goods. This was the first major trade response against Japan since World War II.

Tariff context: Reagan vs. Trump

“No one wants a trade war, but no one wants to be a fool”

“The terms ‘free trade’ and ‘fair trade’ were indeed topics of Reagan’s presidency. However, Reagan often stressed that he leaned toward a freer direction in trade. He regularly condemned protectionism, which is now echoing from Trump’s rhetoric.

“Today protectionism is used by some American politicians as a cheap display of nationalism”

“The so-called protectionism is almost always self-defeating, doing more harm than good even to those it supposedly helps” – Reagan said in 1985, casting doubt on the justification of such approaches. In 1987 he noted that “protectionism is not the way to solve our trade imbalance.”

“The so-called protectionism is almost always self-defeating, doing more harm than good, even to those it supposedly helps”

Reagan often criticized the Smoot-Hawley Act, the package of major tariffs enacted in 1930, which many historians believe worsened the Great Depression. Trump, by contrast, expressed the opposite position, claiming in April that the Depression “would not have happened if they had continued tariff policy” – an interpretation that differs from Reagan’s views. Such a divergent interpretation reflects the difference between Trump and Reagan on tariff policy.

If there is anything common between Reagan and Trump, it is that neither wanted to rely on Congress on this issue. Reagan drew attention to Congress’s efforts toward even tougher measures against countries such as Japan, but later vetoed such bills.

Overall, Reagan believed trade wars were harmful and should be avoided; Trump, by contrast, expressed a different stance, focusing on more aggressive tariffs and using them as a bargaining tool.