Trade Barriers Quotes
Despite developed nation calls for free trade, The US, EEC and Japan maintain an extensive system of agricultural subsidies which are politically difficult to eliminate while expecting developing nations to eliminate their protectionist practices.
In October 2025 (ahead of ongoing trade negotiations), the Ontario Provincial Government (Canadian) produced a video ad distributed in the US using a voice-over of the above quote from a 1987 Ronald Reagan Presidential Radio Address. The ad uses five complete sentences from the five-minute weekly address, but they are spliced together out of sequence. Also, while the ad implies Reagan was against tariffs, it omitted the context that he was using the radio address to announce new tariffs imposed on Japan by his administration but that they should be seen as an unavoidable exception to his basic belief in free trade as the key to prosperity. He said, “our commitment to free trade is also a commitment to fair trade.” President Trump accused the Ontario government of producing a fraudulent ad and of attempting to influence the US Supreme Court as it prepares to hear arguments about the legality of Trump’s tariffs. As a result, the Trump administration terminated trade negotiations with Canada.
Referring to NAFTA, CAFTA and other international trade agreements
In this case the tariffs were imposed not to protect national industries but to simply raise revenue. In the early years of the United States, almost all of the Federal Revenue was raised this way.