LILLEY: Ford plays the long game in charm offensive against Trump

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Seems some people don’t understand that to persuade people you need to get your message across.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is once again facing criticism for travelling to Washington for meetings on the tariff issue and for spending millions of tax dollars on an ad campaign to sell Ontario to Americans.

There are even complaints that Ford’s government paid for ads to sponsor the number one cable news channel as it pulled in millions of viewers while airing an interview with Donald Trump. That’s about as valid of the complaints that Ford has been meeting with people who support Trump’s tariffs – that’s the whole point, find a way to convince people to change their point of view.

While Ford and his government have spent tens of millions of dollars on their charm offensive on Washington, getting hit with sweeping tariffs would mean a hit to the economy of tens of billions of dollars.

It’s hard to keep up with Trump’s tariff threats or know how to respond to them. At the end of November, nearly two months before he was sworn in, he threatened 25% tariffs on all Canadian imports unless action was taken to deal with drugs and illegal migrants on the border.

Since then, Trump has made several additional tariff threats such as specific 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from every country in the world. While announcing that he would match tariffs on goods from India and the European Union, which charge some high tariffs on American goods, Trump singled out Canada’s Digital Services Tax as a potential tariff to retaliate against and said any country with a value added tax – like the GST – could face additional tariffs.

Then there are threats of a different batch of auto tariffs and sector by sector tariffs that could come in April. Keeping up is a dizzying task to say the least, as is keeping each new line of tariffs straight.

The good news is that American law limits the ability of any president to unilaterally impose tariffs. The president can impose certain tariffs citing national security, called Section 232 tariffs, or can match tariffs imposed by other countries.

American law does not allow the president to have complete control over trade, which is constitutionally designated to Congress.

That’s why Ford’s charm offensive in Washington matters in the long term. Eventually, this issue will land on Capitol Hill where members of the House of Representatives and the Senate will make decisions on the future of trade.

That’s why meetings by Ford, and other premiers, along with Ontario’s ad campaign are so vital to the long-term campaign to deal with tariffs.

The ad campaign for Ontario was originally slated to cost about $25 million over the first two months, with ads starting in late November. The ads, which gently explain how Ontario is, and has been, a long-standing partner to America began airing in late November.

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The ads ran during NFL games during the end of the season, during playoffs and in the streaming version of the Super Bowl. They have also been targetted to travellers at Washington-area airports, as well as cable news channels such CNN but with a heavy emphasis on Fox News, the channel favoured by Republicans.

This week, a Sean Hannity’s show on Fox aired an interview with Trump and Elon Musk, a video aired that said, “This program is brought to you by Ontario, Canada, your trusted economic partner.” The sponsorship of the program was part of the province’s overall ad buy and did not cost extra, but it hit the people the ads need to target, those supporting President Trump.

In total, the Ontario ad campaign has received more than 500 million impressions, sure, many of them are the same people but as the old rule says, an ad needs to be seen seven times before it sinks in.

In the meantime, Ford is also holding meetings with people like Georgia Govenor Brian Kemp, chair of the Republican Governor’s Association. He also met with Representative Adrian Smith, Chair Sub-committee for Trade on the Ways and Means committee, one of the most important trade committees on the Hill.

We are in a long war that could cost us billions, so spending millions to try and counter this is not something we should fret about.

blilley@postmedia.com