A television ad featuring the late Ronald Reagan is turning into an international incident that has President Donald Trump threatening to raise tariffs on Canada by an additional 10%.

The ad, funded by the Ontario government and posted to X by Ontario Premier Doug Ford, includes excerpts from an address Reagan gave in 1987 in which he defended free trade and slammed tariffs as outdated.

Trump said Thursday he would immediately stop all trade negotiations with Canada due to the ad. "TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A.,"Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED."

Ford said Friday that Ontario was pausing the ad — but only after airing it during the World Series games over the weekend. "Our intention was always to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses," Ford wrote in a post to X (formerly Twitter). "We've achieved our goal, having reached U.S. audiences at the highest levels."

That did not appear to placate Trump, however, who said Saturday he would increase tariffs on Canada an additional 10% "above what they're paying now," for not pulling the ad sooner.

The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 11-4 in Game 1 of the World Series on Friday, with Addison Barger hitting the first-ever pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history.

Meanwhile, Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will meet next Thursday in South Korea, the White House said, as the two leaders look to deescalate a simmering trade war between the two countries.

The summit will come after lower level talks between the countries this week as trade tensions between the two countries continues to rise. The US is considering curbs on software-related exports to China, Reuters reported Wednesday, adding another layer of uncertainty to trade negotiations between the countries.

The move could make good on Trump's vague threat to impose export curbs on "any and all critical software," in addition to additional 100% tariffs, from Nov. 1, after China moved to restrict exports of rare earth minerals.

The US and China have seen their fragile trade relationship wobble further in recent weeks, with Trump confirming last week that the countries are in a trade war.

Late Friday, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced his agency was investigating "whether China has fully implemented its commitments under the Phase One Agreement, the burden or restriction on U.S. commerce resulting from any non-implementation by China of its commitments, and what action, if any, should be taken in response."

Trump has floated a list of demands for China talks, citing rare earths, fentanyl, and soybeans as his top issues to address with Beijing.

The administration is also seeking potential cudgels. In a move that analysts said was aimed squarely at China, Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday signed a deal that the White House said would help supply the US with the critical minerals.

Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet

The US and India are nearing a trade deal which could see tariffs on New Delhi cut to 15%-16% from their current 50% level, according to a report.

The White House is easing tariffs on the US auto industry, delivering a major win for carmakers who have lobbied to reduce the fallout from higher import duties.

Trump is stepping up attacks on US trading partners over drug pricing and is preparing a probe, which could lead to new tariffs.

Americans are set to pay more than half of President Trump's tariffs as companies raise prices, according to Goldman Sachs.

Early next month, the US Supreme Court is set to hear a challenge to Trump's most sweeping tariffs — the "reciprocal" country-by-country duties that you can see in the graphic above. A ruling against the tariffs — which would be in line with lower-court decisions — could have significant ramifications for Trump's tariff strategy.

As he headed to Asia on Saturday, President Donald Trump renewed his complaints over a TV ad produced by Canada that featured footage of Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs, Bloomberg reports:

“I’m satisfied with the deal we have. We have a deal right now that’s very good for us. Any deal that would have been made would have been better for them than the one they have right now,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One when asked what Ottawa could do to get talks back on track.

Asked if he had any plans to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who is slated to attend two summits in Asia that Trump is also participating in, the US president responded “I don’t have any intention of it, no.”

Shortly before departing, Trump called the commercial “dishonest” and panned the decision to keep airing it during US broadcasts of the World Series.

“I heard they were pulling the ad, I didn’t know they were putting it on a little bit more,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “They could have pulled it tonight. Well, that’s dirty playing — but I can play dirtier than they can, you know? Really, very dishonest.”

The government-funded ad, which featured excerpts of late US President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs, won’t appear after Friday and Saturday’s games, following Trump’s criticism of it, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said in a post on the social media network X.

Read more here.

The small African country of Lesotho, a key producer of denim and other textiles, has been hard-hit by President Donald Trump's tariffs, Bloomberg reports.

Trump initially put 50% levies on imports from Lesotho, the highest in the world. Despite a cut to 15% in August, those duties still outstrip those on competitors like Kenya, and some factories have eliminated jobs as orders dried up.

“We are still in negotiations with the US government on a further reduction, maybe to 10% or to zero — where we were before,” Prime Minister Sam Matekane said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s . “The introduction of the tariffs have put us in a disadvantaged position” because businesses can relocate to countries where levies are lower, he said.

Textiles is the biggest industry in Lesotho, a country of about 2.3 million people. Those businesses employ 12,000 people and indirectly support 40,000 jobs, supplying US retailers such as Walmart Inc., JC Penney and Levi Strauss & Co. Before the new tariffs, most of of the country’s exports to the US — its second-biggest trade partner — entered duty-free under the now-defunct African Growth and Opportunity Act.

Before Trump took office, Lesotho’s central bank forecast modest expansion this year and next for textile and clothing manufacturing. The new outlook: contractions of 9.9% and 13.3%. Trump’s tariffs are based on countries’ trade balance with the US, and Lesotho imported less than $3 million in goods from the US last year, compared with exports of more than $235 million.

Read more here.

It appears that the public anger President Donald Trump aimed at an anti-tariffs ad featuring Ronald Reagan led to the spot becoming more visible online, Bloomberg reports. The 60-second spot from Ontario, which used part of a 1987 radio address where Reagan denounced tariffs, prompted Trump to angrily terminate trade talks with the US neighbor to the north, a trade relationship that has an annual value of about $900 billion.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced Friday afternoon the province would stop running the ads — but only after they aired during the two opening World Series baseball games this weekend. The move seemed to do little to placate Trump, who told reporters later Friday he was satisfied with the current trade arrangement with Canada and had no plans to meet Prime Minister Mark Carney during summits in Asia over the next week.

While it’s too early to gauge the lasting effect of the campaign, its immediate impact was dramatic. Online views of the ad spiked, even as efforts to suppress it grew, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the “Streisand Effect.”

As of 7:30 a.m. Friday in Toronto, the original social-media post from Ford containing the ad had been viewed 578,000 times over eight days. Five hours later that figure was a million. By Saturday morning, it had reached 1.5 million.

“The funny irony here is that in the wake of Trump’s post, now the whole world knows what Reagan said about tariffs as opposed to this just being targeted ads by the Ontario government,” said Bank of Nova Scotia economist Derek Holt.

Read more here.

You've probably noticed the price of your daily java keeps creeping higher; new figures show an uptick of 3% in coffee prices between August and September of this year, and a 41% jump between last month and September 2024, the Associated Press reports:

The average U.S. price of a pound of ground coffee hit $9.14 in September, a 3% increase from the August average of $8.87 and 41% higher than in September 2024, according to U.S. government figures. Coffee prices have been increasing sharply since the start of this year.

Consumer prices for food purchased for home use and away from home were 3% in September compared to the same month a year earlier, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday. The consumer price index, which measures a broader sample of all coffee products, including instant coffee, showed U.S. coffee prices up 19% from September 2024 and flat compared to August.

According to Toast, a restaurant management system, the average price of a regular coffee at U.S. restaurants in September was $3.54 compared to $3.45 a year earlier.

Read more here.

Economists including former Federal Reserve Chairs Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke have sharply criticized President Donald Trump's tariffs, Bloomberg reported Friday, and urged the Supreme Court to overturn them.

Trade deficits between the US and other nations are expected and not the “unusual and extraordinary” threat the Trump administration cited in imposing sweeping tariffs under an emergency law, a group of nearly 50 economists said in a brief filed Friday. Besides, the tariffs won’t close the deficits anyway, the economists said.

“The reciprocal tariffs do not ‘deal with’ the trade deficits,” the group wrote. “Instead, they will have trillions of dollars’ worth of impact on the economy, an impact that will reverberate across every household and state.”

“This is Economics 101, but the implications are profound,” the group added.

The Supreme Court will weigh whether Trump’s tariffs were issued legally during oral arguments set for Nov. 5. In the meantime, outside groups are making their views known in so-called friend-of-the-court briefs with the justices. The economists’ filing was one of several submitted before Friday’s deadline for supporters of the companies that are challenging Trump’s tariffs.

Read more here.

Ahead of a high-stakes summit scheduled for Oct. 30 between President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping, the Trump administration on Friday opened a trade investigation into whether China complied with a 2020 agreement, Bloomberg reports:

The Trump administration is launching a trade investigation that opens the door to new tariffs on Chinese goods, ratcheting up tensions ahead of a highly anticipated summit next week between the countries’ leaders.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Friday announced the opening of a probe into whether China complied with a limited trade agreement reached in 2020 during President Donald Trump’s first term.

The investigation “will examine whether China has fully implemented its commitments under the Phase One Agreement, the burden or restriction on U.S. commerce resulting from any non-implementation by China of its commitments, and what action, if any, should be taken in response,” the agency said Friday in a statement.

Read more here.

A late night post on Thursday from President Trump reignited trade tensions with Canada with the announcement that ongoing trade talks are \\"HEREBY TERMINATED.\\"

Trump says the move was spurred by a new ad produced by the government of Ontario, which features Ronald Reagan slamming Trump's trade approach.

But it's not the first time Trump has suggested ending ongoing talks with Canada, and it's also not the first reason he has given for doing so.

In fact, according to Yahoo Finance's count, this is at least the third instance of Trump threatening to end talks.

This June, the focus was on the issue of digital service taxes, which led Trump to write he was \\"hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada.\\"

By July, Trump said it was the Middle East that was making it \\"very hard for us to make a Trade Deal\\" with Canada.

Read more here.

The price of uranium rose slightly on Friday morning after steadily falling throughout the last two weeks, according to data from Trading Economics. The reversal comes after President Trump said he was calling off trade negotiations with Canada late Thursday night.

The US commercial nuclear reactor industry imports around a third of its uranium, around 14 million pounds, from Canada, according to data from the Energy Information Administration, leaving nuclear developers highly exposed to any fluctuation in US-Canada trade.

Shares in the startup companies developing nuclear reactors spiked in the first hour of Friday's trading session.

Oklo (OKLO), backed by OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) chief Sam Altman, climbed by more than 8%, while NuScale Power (SMR) and Nano Nuclear Energy (NNE) rose by more than 3% and more than 4%, respectively.

Bitumen, a heavy crude product drawn from the oil sands scattered through Alberta, held roughly flat Friday morning, according to data from Trading Economics.

Western Canadian Select crude closed around $46.80 for the week ended October 17 and is expected to fall to $45 by the end of the year under the Alberta government's \\"tariff case\\" projection.

Bloomberg News reports:

Chinese state-owned companies including Sinopec canceled some purchases of seaborne Russian crude after the US blacklisted Rosneft PJSC and Lukoil PJSC, adding to signs of disruption in the oil market.

The majors have begun to assess the curbs, as well as similar moves by the EU, according to people with knowledge of the situation, asking not to be identified discussing sensitive issues. The companies halted purchases of some spot cargoes, mostly ESPO, a grade from Russia’s Far East, they said.

The global oil market has been jolted this week by the wave of US sanctions, which have targeted Russia’s two largest producers and are intended to raise the pressure against Moscow to end the war in Ukraine. Prices spiked on Thursday after the Trump administration’s package was announced, and Brent futures are on course for a weekly gain of more than 7%.

Read more here.

President Trump said he has terminated all trade negotiations with Canada due to a Canadian advertisement against his tariff plan featuring the voice of former President Ronald Reagan.

The ad comprises excerpts from an address Reagan gave in 1987, where he defended the principles of free trade, slamming tariffs as an outdated idea that hinders innovation, drives up prices, and hurts US workers.

Trump suggested the ad was released to coincide with a US Supreme Court hearing challenging the legality of the US president's economic plan.

Bloomberg News reports:

“TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A.,” Trump wrote. “Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.”

Funded by the government of Ontario, the ad seeks to sow doubt among Republican voters by using one of the party’s most iconic voices.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute had criticized Ontario for running the ad, saying that they didn’t seek permission to use the remarks, and that “selective audio and video” in the ad “misrepresents” Reagan’s full address.

The remarks from Reagan backed his decision to tariff Japanese imports, while defending free trade and warning of the long-term effects from tariffs.

Canada’s economy has been badly damaged by Trump’s tariffs, as about three-quarters of its exported goods went to the US last year. Ontario, which has about 16 million people, has been at the center of the trade war because it’s the heart of Canada’s steel and automotive industries, two sectors in which Trump has hit foreign producers. Canada is the second-largest trading partner for the US.

Read more here.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has plans to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week with US tariffs as a main talking point.

Bloomberg reports:

Carney is pursuing a meeting with the Chinese leader while both attend the gathering in Gyeongju, South Korea, from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1, but nothing has been confirmed, a Canadian government official told reporters in a background briefing on Thursday.

In the briefing, the official said Carney is pursuing a “strategic relationship” with China. Another official said Carney believes firmly in talking to everyone — he’s been clear about areas in which Canada can cooperate and areas where it can’t, and the goal is to further Canada’s interests and build out good opportunities for Canadian industries.

The Canadian leader met Chinese Premier Li Qiang in New York last month and the two committed to continued engagement, including at the “highest levels” of government. The G-20 Summit in South Africa in late November will be another opportunity for the two to meet, a Canadian official said.

Read more here.

China has been the biggest buyer of soy from U.S. farmers for years, but trade negotiations and tariffs have complicated the deal.

Bloomberg reports:

Beijing imposed retaliatory tariffs on US farm goods in March, effectively slamming the door shut on US soybean imports for commercial buyers before the harvest even began. The move has given China leverage in its trade war with President Donald Trump by squeezing the farmers who form a key part of his base.

A country that last year purchased $13 billion of US beans — more than 20% of the entire crop — for animal feed and cooking oil officially still hasn’t booked a single shipment from this fall’s bounty. Seeking a trade deal, Trump and his counterpart Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet next week.

Criticizing Trump doesn’t come easily to many farmers. But as soybeans pile up in silos and storage bins, it’s hard not to feel like collateral damage in a fight they didn’t pick.They worry that even if a deal is reached, the war will inflict lasting harm, with China determined to buy more soy from Brazil and Argentina rather than depend on the US. And while they’d accept government financial help during the trade fight, they’d rather be able to sell their beans.

Read more here.

According to a Bloomberg report, China is pushing ahead with imports of US-sanctioned Russian liquefied natural gas. The move comes after President Trump blacklisted Moscow's state-run oil giants Rosneft PJSC and Lukoil PJSC, citing Russia's failure to end the war in Ukraine.

It also follows Trump's pressure on China to stop purchasing oil from Russia, a threat he has also made to India, which was followed by Trump raising tariffs on New Delhi. This latest news comes a day before the US and China are due to meet to discuss trade and before the summit between Trump and China's Xi Jinping.

Bloomberg News reports:

The Iris vessel, carrying a shipment from the blacklisted Arctic LNG 2 facility in Russia, docked at the Beihai import terminal in southern China on Thursday, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. This is China’s 11th shipment of restricted Russian LNG since late-August.

The lack of new restrictions on Russian LNG is notable, given that the UK slapped sanctions on Beihai last week. Meanwhile, European Union nations have adopted a new package of sanctions aimed at Russia that will target 45 entities, including 12 companies in China and Hong Kong.

China had designated Beihai as the sole entry point for shipments from Arctic LNG 2 — a Russian project already sanctioned by the US in 2023. Arctic LNG 2 started delivering the blacklisted fuel to the Asian nation in late August, a move that coincided with a visit to Beijing by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Iris vessel loaded an LNG shipment from a floating storage unit in eastern Russia in early October, according to ship-tracking data. The fuel in storage was sourced from the Arctic LNG 2 project. The storage facility and Iris have both been previously sanctioned by the US.

At least three more vessels carrying blacklisted Russian LNG are heading to the Beihai terminal, ship data shows. Satellite images taken on Oct. 18 showed an LNG tanker registered to a Hong Kong-based company receiving fuel from a sanctioned Russian tanker near Malaysia.

Read more here.

President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will meet next Thursday in Malaysia, the White House said.

The White House confirmation caps days of uncertainty over whether the meeting would actually happen, as Trump himself waffled in recent days. The White House press secretary said the two leaders would meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Trump and Xi last met in person during Trump's first term in 2019. They spoke by phone earlier this year, after trade tensions between the countries first simmered.

Yahoo Finance's Ben Werschkul has more:

Gyeongju's time zone is 11 hours ahead of Washington D.C., meaning the sit-down is set to begin late Wednesday evening in Washington.

The two presidents have spoken over the phone at least twice during Trump's second term so far, most recently in September.

The meeting comes after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met directly with his Chinese counterpart, Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, last week in Washington in a meeting he called \\"frank and detailed.\\"

Bessent is scheduled to meet with He again this weekend in Malaysia as those two leaders set the table for the meeting of the two presidents, which is expected to cover a wide array of issues from rare earth minerals to semiconductor export controls to Chinese purchases of Russian oil as well as purchases of US soybeans.

Leavitt suggested later in Thursday’s press briefing that China could already be scaling back their purchases of Russian oil citing “international news out of China this morning” in an apparent reference to a Reuters report that some Chinese state oil companies are suspending Russian oil purchases.

Rare earths have become a vital negotiating point over the last few months. China holds the largest rare earth reserves globally and is tightening exports of its rare earth materials, a move that has forced the US to diversify its supply chain and sign deals with companies like MP Materials (MP).

The deepening crisis may leave the Trump administration weeks away from a rare earth crisis, which some sectors seem to be ignoring.

Yahoo Finance's Jake Conley looks into the latest problem facing President Trump:

\\"We are days if not weeks away from a crisis when it comes to national security,\\" said Neha Mukherjee, a rare earths research manager at the consultancy and research firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Earlier this month, China announced tightened export restrictions on rare earth minerals, including a complete prohibition on all exports for defense applications, potentially leaving the US defense industry without a key input across a range of weapons systems.

But during earnings calls this week, leadership at the country's so-called prime defense contractors — Lockheed Martin (LMT), RTX Corporation (RTX), and Northrop Grumman (NOC) — downplayed concerns over the supply challenges, even as tensions between Washington and Beijing over the inputs remain high.

Rare earths are crucial components in the weapons systems used by the US, from F-35 fighter jets to Tomahawk missiles. Only recently have real efforts gone into developing a dependable domestic supply chain for the materials.

China currently controls approximately 70% of rare earth mining capacity, 90% of separation and processing capacity, and 93% of magnet manufacturing globally, giving Beijing immense control over global supply.

Read more here.

China and the US will meet on Friday to discuss trade and attempt to defuse the ongoing tensions between the world's two largest economies.

China's Vice Premier He Lifeng confirmed that he will meet with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to discuss trade. The meeting will also set the stage for the highly anticipated and now fragile summit between President Trump and China's President Xi Jinping.

Bloomberg News reports:

The meeting will take place in the Malaysian capital to “discuss important issues” in the bilateral trade ties, the Commerce Ministry said in a Thursday statement. He, Beijing’s top trade negotiator, held a call with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week ahead of the planned in-person summit.

Bessent and He, a longtime associate of President Xi Jinping, face the task of negotiating down new escalatory measures imposed by their countries against one another. They are also setting the stage for expected talks later this month between Xi and US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders summit in South Korea.

Earlier in October, Trump lashed out against Beijing’s vow to exert broad controls on rare-earth elements, raising the prospect of setting a sky-high tariff rate on Chinese goods and even canceling his first in-person meeting with Xi since he returned to the White House this year.

Read more here.

President Trump is getting ready to investigate US trading partners over drug prices, a probe that could unleash fresh tariffs on the industry.

The FT reports:

The imminent investigation, which would come under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, would consider whether any US trading partners are underpaying for drugs, said three people familiar with the matter.

Trump has repeatedly complained other countries pay less than the US for medicines and signalled he would take trade actions against nations that refused to “equalise”.

“In London, you’d buy a certain drug for $130 . . . and in New York, you pay $1,300 for the same thing,” Trump said last week, referring to weight-loss pills.

US drug prices are on average almost three times higher than those in many other developed countries, according to research by The Rand Corporation.

Ozempic, the popular weight-loss drug from Denmark’s Novo Nordisk (NVO), costs $936 for a one-month supply in the US, but only $147 for the same amount in neighbouring Canada and as little as $83 in France, according to data from KFF, a non-profit health group.

Read more here.

The AP reports:

Japan’s exports grew 4.2% in September, according to government data Wednesday, on robust shipments to Asia that offset a decline in exports to the U.S., which were impacted by President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Japan’s exports to Asia jumped 9.2% last month compared to the same period a year earlier, according to Japanese Ministry of Finance data.

Exports to the U.S. dropped 13.3%, marking the sixth straight month of on-year declines, while those to China surged 5.8% compared to last year.

Auto shipments to the U.S. dropped 24.2% in September. Automakers like Toyota Motor Corp. are pillars of Japan's economy.

Japan’s imports edged up 3.3% in September overall, growing 6% in Asia, including a 9.8% rise in imports from China.

Read more here.

Bloomberg reports:

Donald Trump is interested in meeting Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and officials are discussing a possible meeting while the pair are in Malaysia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, according to a White House official.

Brazil is hoping the resumption of dialogue between the two countries will convince the US to lower the punitive levies facing key Brazilian goods, including coffee and meat. The meeting could happen as soon as Oct. 26, three Brazilian officials familiar with the planning said.

In a phone call with Trump earlier this month, Lula asked the US to bring the 50% tariff rate imposed on his country down to 10% and to remove sanctions and visa restrictions on Brazilian judges, government officials and their relatives.

After that call — which both sides described as friendly — Trump said he would look to schedule meetings with Lula in both Brazil and the US. But the summit offers an earlier opportunity for the leaders to meet and resolve a spat that began in July, after Trump sought to stop the trial of his ally Jair Bolsonaro, which has led to months of frosty relations between the two countries.

Read more here.

Tensions continue to rise in an ongoing feud between the Trump administration and US farmers who are facing the impact of tariffs.

Bloomberg reports:

President Donald Trump attacked US cattle ranchers over their criticism of his plan to slash record beef prices by importing more meat from Argentina, deepening a quarrel over his trade policy with a group of reliable supporters.

Trump on Wednesday said that cattlemen should be grateful for his tariffs, saying they have helped boost their profits, while also imploring them to lower the cost of their products.

“If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years — Terrible! It would be nice if they would understand that,” the president posted on social media. “They also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!”

Read more here.