Ronald Reagan’s 1987 radio address, delivered from Camp David, has resurfaced in political discourse, igniting a debate over tariffs and free trade. The provincial government of Ontario recently released an advertisement campaign that puts a fresh spin on a historic speech. They carefully cherry-pick parts of Reagan’s statements to support an anti-tariff position. Donald Trump pounced on the Reagan ad campaign, even though he has his history wrong in claiming that Reagan ever supported tariffs. This single assertion enraged many of Reagan’s best and brightest supporters.
From April 25, 1987, Reagan the president calling on the American people to support free and fair trade. In the course of this important speech, he elaborated in clear terms on why advanced economies had by and large turned against tariffs as an economic weapon. Reagan believed that tariffs made American firms more reliant on government protection. He worried them because he felt these tariffs were decreasing competition in the market. Through this analysis, he was able to highlight the damaging effects of tariffs such as their role in beginning trade wars and driving up consumer prices.
Ronald Reagan foresaw that the imposition of tariffs usually goads the targeted nation into enacting retaliatory tariffs, escalating the situation between two trading partners. He cautioned that doing so could lead to the loss of more American jobs. “We had clear evidence that Japanese companies were engaging in unfair trade practices that violated an agreement between Japan and the United States,” he emphasized, indicating that his administration had embraced free trade principles despite placing higher tariffs on certain Japanese goods.
By the time Reagan was delivering his address, American attitudes toward Japan were massively shifting in the other direction. Japanese companies had started to inundate the U.S. market with superior quality, lower cost products — the most notable examples being the automotive and electronics industries. In retaliation to the flooding of cheap Japanese semiconductors, Reagan raised tariffs on other Japanese goods. He pledged that he would only remove these tariffs once Japan proved that they were treating American businesses and workers fairly. Until then, those tariffs would remain.
The Ontario government’s promotion campaign wants to use Reagan’s signature to feed the government’s anti-tariff communications. Ontario Premier Doug Ford remarked, “Take Ronald Reagan’s words and let’s blast it to the American people,” indicating a desire to share what they believe are crucial insights from the former president’s perspective on trade.
Ford defended the advertisement, asserting, “It’s not a nasty ad,” and expressed admiration for Reagan by stating, “He was just the best president America has ever seen in my opinion.” Critics have claimed that the cherry-picked use of Reagan’s speech does a disservice to what he was actually saying about tariffs.
To counter the outrage, Trump took to Twitter. He had the audacity to say that Reagan was for tariffs, the opposite of the key theme of Reagan’s very first address. The former president’s rhetoric on tariffs has certainly inflamed divisions among political parties over trade policy today.
Reagan’s State of the Union provides interesting historical context to today’s debates over tariffs and international trade agreements. It highlights the ongoing challenges that policymakers face in balancing domestic economic interests with international relations.
