re: Trade negotiations with Canada have been terminated

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What in the add was fake?

Nothing. I just watched it. It used the exact words Reagan uttered in his most noted speech on tariffs. The Reagan library is just closing ranks to protect The Party and say it is misrepresenting Reagan. Unless misrepresentation means "took his exact words to make modern GOP policies sound retarded."

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The ad is considered “fake” or misleading primarily because it selectively edits and rearranges excerpts from Reagan’s original April 25, 1987, Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade, omitting key context that shows his support for targeted tariffs in cases of unfair trade practices. In the full speech,

Reagan expresses a general aversion to tariffs, linking them to historical harms like exacerbating the Great Depression via the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. However, he frames his remarks around a recent decision to impose tariffs on certain Japanese goods (like semiconductors) as a “special case” due to Japanese companies violating US-Japan trade agreements and engaging in unfair practices, such as dumping cheap products to harm American industries. He states he was “loath” to impose barriers but did so reluctantly for fairness, vowing to remove them once Japan complied.

The ad skips these parts, jumps between sections (sometimes reversing order or omitting intervening minutes of audio), and creates a narrative of blanket opposition to all tariffs, which misrepresents the speech’s balanced view on free trade with exceptions for retaliation against violations.

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