Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, is backing down less than 24 hours into a trade-related scuffle with President Trump, saying he will pause a television ad that uses Ronald Reagan’s own words to attack American tariffs.

Mr. Ford capitulated Friday afternoon after Mr. Trump abruptly halted trade negotiations with Canada over the ad, which aired in America during Major League Baseball playoff games.

Mr. Trump claimed the ads amount to foreign interference with his administration’s “reciprocal” tariff policy.

“The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs,” Mr. Trump said on Truth Social shortly before midnight Thursday.

The ad begins with Reagan saying, “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.”

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute has confirmed that all the words heard in the ad were spoken by the 40th president but said that sentences had been rearranged.

Mr. Ford now says the ad will air during the first two World Series games but that the campaign will be put on hold starting on Monday. The Toronto Blue Jays host the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first two World Series games this weekend.

Mr. Ford said he had spoken with Prime Minister Mark Carney before deciding on the indefinite pause.

“Our intention was always to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses. We’ve achieved our goal, having reached U.S. audiences at the highest levels,” Mr. Ford said in an X post.

Mr. Ford added that he decided on the pause “so that trade talks can resume.”

Mr. Trump claimed the Canadian ad was intended “to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts.”

The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next month from small companies that are calling Mr. Trump’s tariffs an overreach of presidential powers. Two lower courts have ruled against the president but allowed the tariffs to remain in place as the case continues.

Canada is one of more than half a dozen major American trading partners that have not come up with at least a preliminary trade agreement since Mr. Trump sought to radically rebalance American trade with “Liberation Day” tariffs on countries across the globe.

Canada took a hardline stance against the Trump tariffs and slapped retaliatory tariffs against the United States. Mr. Carney laer eliminated most of them but that has not led to a trade agreement.

While the bulk of U.S.-Canada trade is protected by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement negotiated during Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Carney is seeking to lower stiff new tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos, and energy.

The trilateral USMCA is up for a formal review in July 2026 and all three countries have already begun soliciting public input.