Trump's latest outburst is another reminder of how much has changed

As Donald Trump explained it, he was primarily worried about the accurate and honourable reporting of Ronald Reagan's views on trade policy — and concerned that a misrepresentation of the former U.S. president's views might somehow influence the justices of the United States Supreme Court. 

And his belief in this regard is so strong that he was willing to suspend trade negotiations with one of his country's closest allies over a television ad.

"Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED." Trump announced in a social media post published at 10:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.

Trump had seemed, just 48 hours earlier, to understand why a jurisdiction impacted by his tariffs might produce such an ad.

"If I was Canada I’d take that same ad also,” he said on Tuesday.

But Trump's new claims were built upon a pretext helpfully supplied by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, which claimed, in a statement issued shortly before Trump's announcement, that the ad produced by the government of Ontario somehow "misrepresents" what the foundation's namesake said — though the foundation has not yet specified exactly what was misrepresented or how.

If nothing else, Trump and the Reagan foundation succeeded in ensuring that many more people are now familiar with the message the late president recorded in April 1987 — the New York Times, CNN and the BBC have all now dutifully produced explainers, while the foundation was gracious enough to post a link to the full archival video.

If they were not already familiar, Canadian and American viewers will no doubt come away with a richer understanding of the significant differences between the 40th and 47th presidents.

Indeed, if nothing else, this latest drama is another reminder — as if one was needed — of just how different a world Canada finds itself in and how immense and disorienting the challenge before it now is.

"I think we all cling to a model of behaviour of a president, out of comfort," Flavio Volpe, president of Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, told CBC News on Friday morning, "and I don't know what good it does us now."

There are, Volpe cautioned, "no quick answers."

American complaints about Canadian responses to American actions have been a periodic feature of the last nine months. This is also not the first time Trump has declared a sudden end to trade negotiations because of a grievance he has with the Canadian side.

In that previous episode, Mark Carney's government agreed to resolve the grievance, abandoning a proposed digital services tax that American tech giants opposed. That at least kept the Americans talking, though three months later there is still no resolution. 

In this week's episode, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has agreed to conclude the ad campaign, though not before the ads will have run during American broadcasts of the first two games of the World Series.