Carney Says He Apologized to Trump Over Ad Reviving Reagan’s Tariff Criticism

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.”