Donald Trump has announced he will be raising tariffs on imports of Canadian goods by an extra 10% because of an anti-tariff advert aired in Ontario.

The advert used the words of former US president Ronald Reagan to criticise US tariffs.

A furious Mr Trump on Friday cancelled “all trade negotiations” with Canada.

Doug Ford, Ontario’s premier, said he would pull the advert from Monday, but it continued to run over the weekend, including during the first World Series game between the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Mr Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform: “Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD.

“Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now.”

Mr Trump claimed the advert misrepresented the position of Mr Reagan, a two-term president and a beloved figure in the Republican Party.

Mr Reagan had used much of his 1987 address, featured in Ontario’s ad, spelling out the case against tariffs.

Mr Trump said the advert was intended to influence the US Supreme Court ahead of arguments scheduled for next month which could decide whether the president has the power to impose his sweeping tariffs.

It was not immediately clear when the 10% hike would come into effect, or whether it would apply to all Canadian goods.

Canada – which is America’s closest ally, and one of their biggest trading partners – has been hit hard by US tariffs, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has been trying to work with Mr Trump to lower them.

More than three-quarters of Canadian exports go to the US, and nearly 3.6bn Canadian dollars (2.7bn US dollars) worth of goods and services cross the border daily.

Many Canadian products have been hit with a 35% tariff, while steel and aluminium face rates of 50%.

Energy products have a lower rate of 10%, while other goods covered by the US-Canada-Mexico Agreement are exempt. That trade agreement is slated for review.

Read more from Sky News:
Migrant sex offender arrested
Two arrested over Louvre heist

👉 Follow Trump100 on your podcast app 👈

Mr Trump negotiated the deal in his first term but has since soured on it.

The US president and Mr Carney will both attend the ASEAN summit in Malaysia which started on Sunday, but Mr Trump has said he has no intention of meeting Mr Carney there.

The world’s largest aircraft carrier is steaming towards the Caribbean supported by the rest of its “carrier group” to add even more muscle to the US forces already threateningly close to Venezuela.

The question is simple – is this really all about President Trump‘s war on drugs in South America?

I doubt it. A sledgehammer to crack a nut isn’t even in it.

There are a few reasons to doubt the American government’s stated aim of wiping out these so-called “narco terrorist” gangs threatening the US from Venezuela, even after one takes out of the equation the sort of equipment the military is deploying – which isn’t what they would need for effective drug smuggling interdiction.

While the president acknowledges that the synthetic opioid fentanyl is a huge killer in the US (which it is) and is supplied by drug gangs (which it is), to blame Venezuela for fentanyl production is simply incorrect.

Mexican cartels produce fentanyl with precursors largely supplied from China, and it is from Mexico – America’s neighbour – that the fentanyl is smuggled directly into the United States across its southern border.

Venezuela isn’t involved in this fentanyl business in any meaningful way, and I know this because I have reported from the Sinaloa cartel’s fentanyl production labs in Mexico.

The Mexican cartels are very proud of their business, and from my experience covering this story over the years, when the drugs cartels are proud of something, and it makes them a lot of money – which fentanyl does – they don’t share the market with anyone, and certainly not with Venezuela.

President Trump is right that Venezuela is now a large supplier of other illegal drugs, especially cocaine, but they come from countries like Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, which are the largest producers of the coca leaf in the world (the coca leaf is what cocaine is made from).

Read more:
US accused of ‘inventing a war’
Survivors reported after boat strike
US destroys ‘drug smuggling submarine’

Venezuela, which borders Colombia, is largely a transit country to the Caribbean in the same way that Ecuador, which also borders Colombia, is a transit country to the Pacific.

Neither Venezuela nor Ecuador are significant drug producers.

The drugs enter Venezuela overland, primarily from Colombia, and then mainly leave the country from ports on the northern coast of the country – and these are the departure points of the boats the US government has recently targeted and destroyed, along with the crews on board.

President Trump claims these boats from Venezuela are heading to the United States, but in reality they are mainly heading to the nearby islands of Trinidad and Tobago, and from there they largely go to West Africa and Europe – mostly Spain and Portugal.

Drugs heading to America either pass through Mexico over the border into the US or are transported via the Pacific Ocean route through countries like Ecuador. In this instance, Venezuela isn’t involved.

Read more: Inside Pablo Escobar’s home city where drugs are readily available

It’s widely accepted the two most exported drugs from South America are cocaine and marijuana – and the volume of production is staggering.

But the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US says that synthetic opioids like fentanyl are responsible for most overdose deaths there – and fentanyl is not produced in South America, whatever the president says.

So one can only conclude he is either mistaken and misinformed, or he has another motive. I suspect it is the latter, and that regime change in Venezuela is top of the list.

The US has announced it is sending an aircraft carrier to the waters off South America as it ramps up an operation to target alleged drug smuggling boats.

The Pentagon said in a statement that the USS Gerald R Ford would be deployed to the region, including the Caribbean Sea, to “bolster US capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere”.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro told state media that the US was “inventing a new eternal war”.

The vessel is the US Navy’s largest aircraft carrier. It is currently deployed in the Mediterranean alongside three destroyers, and the group are expected to take around one week to make the journey.

There are already eight US Navy ships in the central and South American region, along with a nuclear-powered submarine, adding up to about 6,000 sailors and marines, according to officials.

It came as the US secretary of war claimed that six “narco-terrorists” had been killed in a strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean Sea overnight.

Pete Hegseth said his military had bombed a vessel which he claimed was operated by Tren de Aragua – a Venezuelan gang that was designated a terror group by Washington in February.

Writing on X, he claimed that the boat was involved in “illicit narcotics smuggling” and was transiting along a “known narco-trafficking route” when it was struck during the night.

All six men on board the boat, which was in international waters, were killed and no US forces were harmed, he said.

Ten vessels have now been bombed in recent weeks, killing more than 40 people.

Mr Hegseth added: “If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like we treat al Qaeda. Day or NIGHT, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down, and kill you.”

While he did not provide any evidence that the vessel was carrying drugs, he did share a 20-second video that appeared to show a boat being hit by a projectile before exploding.

Speaking during a White House news conference last week, Donald Trump argued that the campaign would help tackle the US’s opioid crisis.

“Every boat that we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives. So every time you see a boat, and you feel badly you say, ‘Wow, that’s rough’. It is rough, but if you lose three people and save 25,000 people,” he said.

Read more:
Survivors reported after boat strike
US destroys ‘drug smuggling submarine’

On Thursday, appearing at a press conference with Mr Hegseth, Mr Trump said that it was necessary to kill the alleged smugglers, because if they were arrested they would only return to transport drugs “again and again and again”.

“They don’t fear that, they have no fear,” he told reporters.

The attacks at sea would soon be followed by operations on land against drug smuggling cartels, Mr Trump claimed.

“We’re going to kill them,” he added. “They’re going to be, like, dead.”

Some Democratic politicians have expressed concerns that the strikes risk dragging the US into a war with Venezuela because of their proximity to the South American country’s coast.

Others have condemned the attacks as extrajudicial killings that would not stand up in a court of law.

Jim Himes, a member of the House of Representatives, told CBS News earlier this month: “They are illegal killings because the notion that the United States – and this is what the administration says is their justification – is involved in an armed conflict with any drug dealers, any Venezuelan drug dealers, is ludicrous.”

He claimed that Congress had been told “nothing” about who was on the boats and how they were identified as a threat.