VANCOUVER, British Columbia — As the Los Angeles Dodgers faced off against Canada’s Toronto Blue Jays for the World Series, the first couple of games featured an advertisement that shot around the world. All because when U.S. President Donald Trump noticed it, he reacted like an on-again/off-again girlfriend had just keyed his car.

“The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs,” Trump wrote online, announcing the termination of “all trade negotiations with Canada.”

Well, I guess you could say that it’s “fake” in the sense that the late President Reagan isn’t currently in a position to comment directly on the tariffs that Trump is throwing up all over the place to protect the US market from America’s allies.

Or as Trump calls it: “national security.”

What the Canadian province of Ontario did was use an unedited voiceover of Reagan from 1987 in which he denounces mass tariffs as detrimental to the American economy and job market.

At the time, Reagan was laying the groundwork for the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA), spearheaded by the Gipper himself, and ultimately implemented in 1989. The multi-million-dollar ad buy targets Republican states. Reagan’s unedited voice from his original address accompanies visuals of American life, labor and landscapes, before concluding with Reagan filling the screen as he wraps up.

Republican viewers might ask whether such a departure from Saint Ronald’s policies is wise. The Reagan Foundation, focusing on tenuous fair use claims and alleging misuse, seems less concerned with defending the principles Reagan articulated, which speaks volumes.

What is this — a personality cult where even a deceased icon of the Republican Party still valued by many Trump supporters has to show unfailing allegiance to Dear Leader?

Canadians are drawing another lesson from this fiasco. Under Reagan’s free trade policy, Canada initially feared losing its sovereignty through greater economic integration with the U.S. But decades of globalization, guided by neoconservative visions of an American-led economic order, successfully convinced allies that their fates were inseparable from U.S. policy. Trump has revealed the fragility of this arrangement, as his tariffs transform supply chains into leashes.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is now scrambling to find other trading partners to fill his dance card, notably in Asia and Europe. Finally. Some of us have only been screaming for years about this need to diversify trade with less conventional partners.

Which would explain why suddenly Canada is turning down the volume on its “foreign interference” beefs with India and China in favor of trade pragmatism.