Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said on Saturday that he had apologized this week to President Trump for an anti-tariff television ad from a Canadian province that led the American leader to abruptly cut off talks about U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum and other products from Canada.
Mr. Carney, who was attending a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Gyeongju, South Korea, told reporters on Saturday that he made the apology earlier in the week during a dinner where he and Mr. Trump sat across from each other. It was not long after the president said that he had no interest in speaking with Mr. Carney for a “long time.”
The commercial that set off Mr. Trump’s ire was funded by the province of Ontario and is an assembly of clips from a 1987 speech in which President Ronald Reagan warned of the dangers tariffs posed to the American economy. Mr. Trump claimed that the ad, which was shown in the United States during World Series games, was fraudulent. It accurately reproduces Mr. Reagan’s remarks, but changed the order in which he said them.
The president also claimed that the ad had been created “to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court,” which is considering a legal challenge to many of Mr. Trump’s tariffs.
In addition to ending trade negotiations, which Canadian officials said had been revitalized following a White House meeting between the two leaders in early October, Mr. Trump said that he would impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Canadian exports.
“The president was offended by the act, or by the ad, rather,” Mr. Carney told reporters as he prepared to head back to Canada after about a week in Asia. “It’s not something I would have done — which is to put in place that advertisement — and so I apologized to him.”
Mr. Trump earlier said that he had a “very nice conversation” with the Canadian leader at the dinner, which was held on Wednesday in Mr. Trump’s honor and hosted by President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea.
When asked how Mr. Trump responded to the apology, Mr. Carney said: “I spoke to him at the dinner privately.” He added that the gathering, which had included six other world leaders, was a “very good dinner, it was very cordial.”
On Saturday, Mr. Carney also said that Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario and the man behind the ad, had shown the commercial to him in advance. Mr. Carney said that he had advised the provincial leader to abandon it.
“I told him that for Canadians, it was time to speak, to discuss, to negotiate with the Americans,” Mr. Carney said in French. “Mr. Ford has made a decision, he is independent, he can do it. But it’s not exactly useful.”
Mr. Carney emphasized, as he has before, that trade relations and foreign affairs are solely under the control of the federal government, which he leads.
Mr. Ford said on Monday that he had done nothing wrong and defended the ads, though he nevertheless pulled them from the air.
“We generated a conversation that wasn’t happening in the U.S.,” Mr. Ford said. “Now every single local media, every large media, medium-sized media in the U.S. is talking about it.”
Despite derailing negotiations, Mr. Ford’s ad campaign seemed to find support among many Canadians, including the premier of Manitoba, Wab Kinew.
“I think it’s good that President Trump has to squirm and that he’s being reminded that Republicans and Mr. Reagan were totally against tariffs,” Mr. Kinew told reporters earlier this week.
David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, said that his province still intended to go ahead with anti-tariff ads aimed at Americans.
Mr. Carney declined to comment on the premiers’ approach. But he suggested that he believed the trade talks would restart.
“We’ll wait until they’re ready,” he said.
Ian Austen reports on Canada for The Times. A Windsor, Ontario, native now based in Ottawa, he has reported on the country for two decades. He can be reached at [email protected].
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