President Donald Trump’s vituperative reaction to Ontario’s anti-tariff advertisements — the ones borrowing a 1987 speech by then president Ronald Reagan expounding on the benefits of free trade — are unlikely to leave a mark on Premier Doug Ford, even though they could be blamed for Trump scuppering Canada-U.S. trade talks. ( Ontario said Friday it would be pulling the ads soon after Ford spoke with Prime Minister Mark Carney.) Even Ford’s most spittle-flecked detractors, and there is no shortage of those, hate Trump vastly more.

But that doesn’t mean those ads, at a cost of $75 million — which Ford seemed downright proud to have spent — were a good idea.

Reagan’s message remains sound: “When someone says ‘let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports’, it looks like they’re doing the patr

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