🇺🇸❌🇨🇦 Trump cancelled trade negotiations with Canada after he was told by the Ronald Reagan Library that someone posted an ad showing a video address of Reagan from November 1988 talking about the Canadian Federal elections and Canada’s trade relations with the US.

Besides claiming that the video was posted without the consent of the Ronald Reagan Library, Trump also claimed the video was misquoting Reagan and was posted to mock him and his trade policies.

The reality is quite different. In April 1987 Reagan shared his thoughts on tariffs saying:

“Throughout the world, there's a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. Now, there are sound historical reasons for this. For those of us who lived through the Great Depression, the memory of the suffering it caused is deep and searing. And today, many economic analysts and historians argue that high tariff legislation passed back in that period, called the Smoot-Hawley tariff, greatly deepened the depression and prevented economic recovery.

You see, at first when someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while, it works, but only for a short time. What eventually occurs is, first, homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets.

And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying.

Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs. The memory of all this occurring back in the 30s made me determined when I came to Washington to spare the American people the protectionist legislation that destroys prosperity. Now, it hasn't always been easy. There are those in the Congress, just as there were back in the 30s, who want to go for the quick political advantage, who risk America's prosperity for the sake of a short-term appeal to some special interest group, who forget that more than 5 million American jobs are directly tied to the foreign export business, and additional millions are tied to import”.

Tariffs being bad for the American economy was Reagan’s genuine opinion.

It is worth pointing out that by the time each of these videos were recorded, Reagan was known to suffer from Alzheimer’s and he is more coherent than Trump or Biden are in their speech.

@CIG_telegram