Mark Short, who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, said Sunday that President Trump’s response to former President Reagan’s Canadian ad reflects an “upside down world.”
“What exactly is a national emergency running Ronald Reagan ads for Ontario?”. Short asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“What is the justification for saying this is a national emergency, and how upside down is our world today that a quasi-socialist economy in Canada is running ads extolling the virtues of free trade with one of America’s greatest presidents, and a Republican is denouncing the words of President Ronald Reagan and has more central planners in his administration than any Democrat administration in the last 100 years?” He added. “It’s an upside-down world we live in right now.”
Trump’s tariff policy in the first nine months of his second term resulted in strained relations with the European Union and other US allies such as Mexico, causing economic uncertainty and market turmoil.
A mayor from a Canadian province Ontario on Sunday defended an ad paid for by the province that featured Reagan’s comments taking aim at Trump’s tariffs. The ad did not sit well with Trump, who said he would impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Canadian exports to the United States.
“I support the premier’s approach,” Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said on CBC’s “Rosemary Barton Live,” referring to Ontario Premier Doug Ford. “Sometimes you need to throw a stone in a pond to get a splash. There’s a reaction.”
Trump called off trade talks with Canada last week in the wake of the ad. Its launch in early October marked the beginning of the Ontario government’s “new advertising campaign” targeting their southern neighbour’s tariffs.
Wall Street Journal editorial board moved back Trump’s reaction to the advertisement
“Mr. Trump is wrong about the Reagan speech, and he was wrong when he said on social media that ‘Ronald Reagan preferred tariffs for purposes of national security and the economy,'” the editorial board said in an article published Sunday.
Hill has reached the White House.
