{"id":36620,"date":"2025-10-27T04:42:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T04:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/scott-bessent-canadas-reagan-ad-is-propaganda-part-of-a-psy-op\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T04:42:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T04:42:43","slug":"scott-bessent-canadas-reagan-ad-is-propaganda-part-of-a-psy-op","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/scott-bessent-canadas-reagan-ad-is-propaganda-part-of-a-psy-op\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Bessent: Canada&#8217;s Reagan ad is &#8216;propaganda,&#8217; part of a psy-op"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/68fed4f7599d46a4ccc0df52?format=jpeg\" alt=\"US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks with reporters outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, on October 22, 2025.\"\/><figcaption>Scott Bessent said Ontario&#039;s anti-tariff ad was propaganda.<\/p>\n<p>JIM WATSON\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Scott Bessent said Ontario&#039;s anti-tariff ad, featuring quotes from Ronald Reagan, was &quot;propaganda.&quot;<\/li>\n<li>&quot;What was the purpose of that other than to sway public opinion?&quot; Bessent said in an interview.<\/li>\n<li>Trump said he had paused trade talks with Canada and would impose a 10% tariff on its goods because of the ad.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Canada&#039;s anti-tariff ad, featuring former US President Ronald Reagan, was &quot;propaganda&quot; and part of &quot;psy-ops.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday&#039;s &quot;Meet the Press&quot; on CNBC, Bessent answered a question about why President Donald Trump was setting trade policy based on a television ad he didn&#039;t like. The ad, released on October 16, contained a voiceover of Reagan&#039;s 1987 address in defence of free and fair trade.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;This is a kind of propaganda against US citizens,&quot; Bessent said to CNBC. &quot;It&#039;s psy-ops.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Why would the government of Ontario \u2014 I&#039;m told that they have spent, or were planning to spend, up to $75 million on these ads to come across the US border,&quot; he added. &quot;So what was the purpose of that other than to sway public opinion?&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Bessent, who is in Asia with Trump inking trade deals, acknowledged that the ad had been taken down. But he said putting the ad up had been &quot;terrible, terrible judgment&quot; by Ontario&#039;s premier, Doug Ford.<\/p>\n<p>During a Sunday &quot;Face the Nation&quot; interview with CBS&#039;s Margaret Brennan, Bessent made a similar statement, calling the ad an &quot;interference in US sovereign matters.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#039;s clearly damaged our relationship with the most populous province in Canada,&quot; he told Brennan.<\/p>\n<p>Representatives for the US Treasury and the Ontario Premier&#039;s Office did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.<\/p>\n<h2>How the ad backlash unfolded<\/h2>\n<p>The Canadian province of Ontario&#039;s minute-long ad included a voiceover of Reagan&#039;s 1987 &quot;Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade.&quot; The address said that while tariffs may seem &quot;patriotic,&quot; they eventually &quot;hurt every American worker and consumer&quot; and lead to retaliation and trade wars.<\/p>\n<p>The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute said on Thursday that Ontario had misrepresented Reagan&#039;s comments, and the province had not sought the foundation&#039;s permission to use or edit the former president&#039;s remarks.<\/p>\n<p>Trump slammed Ontario&#039;s ad in a Friday Truth Social post, saying he would end trade negotiations with Canada over the ad.<\/p>\n<p>Ontario&#039;s premier, Ford, said in a Friday X post that his intention with the ad was to &quot;initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We&#039;ve achieved our goal, having reached US audiences at the highest levels,&quot; he said. &quot;I&#039;ve directed my team to keep putting our message in front of Americans over the weekend so that we can air our commercial during the first two World Series games.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>However, Ford said he had spoken with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and decided to pause the ad from Monday so trade talks could continue.<\/p>\n<p>The ad was aired during the World Series games over the weekend. Trump said in a Saturday Truth Social post that he would impose an additional 10% tariff on Canadian goods, above the current rate.<\/p>\n<p>Tariffs on Canadian goods not covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement were taxed at 35% before the proposed 10% hike. Trump has also imposed separate tariffs on products like automobile parts.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scott Bessent said Ontario&#039;s anti-tariff ad was propaganda. JIM WATSON\/AFP via Getty Images Scott Bessent said Ontario&#039;s anti-tariff ad, featuring quotes from Ronald Reagan, was &quot;propaganda.&quot; &quot;What was the purpose of that other than to sway public opinion?&quot; Bessent said in an interview. Trump said he had paused trade talks with Canada and would impose [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}