Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : In October 2025, a seemingly harmless Canadian public-service announcement featuring Ronald Reagan’s 1987 speech on tariffs ignited an international political storm. What began as a provincial media campaign by Ontario quickly escalated into a full-blown trade confrontation with the United States—one that exposed the fragility of U.S.–Canada relations in the Trump era and the fine line between political messaging and economic provocation.
The ad opened with archival footage of Reagan declaring, “Protectionism is destructionism. Tariffs and quotas are barriers that protect the few at the expense of the many.” The message, originally delivered at the height of the Cold War, was reinterpreted by Ontario’s communications bureau as a critique of modern tariff nationalism. The closing frame read, “Free trade built North America. Tariffs break it.” The timing was deliberate. It aired just days after President Donald J. Trump announced a 5% tariff increase on Canadian steel, aluminum, and agricultural imports—part of his renewed “America First Fair Trade” agenda.
For Trump, the ad wasn’t merely a disagreement over policy; it was personal. The president viewed the Reagan montage as a deliberate distortion of a conservative icon’s legacy—one that painted Trump as an economic isolationist rather than a nationalist reformer. Within hours of the broadcast, the White House communications team condemned the ad as “foreign political interference in U.S. policy discourse.” Trump himself took to Truth Social, writing: “Fake Reagan quotes, fake Canada leadership. We’re done talking until they apologize. New tariffs coming.”
The fallout was swift. Trump’s administration suspended ongoing trade negotiations aimed at refining the U.S.–Canada Economic Partnership Framework. He ordered a 10% across-the-board tariff increase on all Canadian imports, including automotive parts, lumber, dairy, and consumer goods. For two economies intertwined through $800 billion in annual trade, the move sent shockwaves through industries on both sides of the border. Trucking associations, small exporters, and retail chains immediately warned that price hikes were inevitable before the 2025 holiday season.
In Ottawa, Prime Minister Mark Carney acted quickly to contain the crisis. Although the advertisement originated from Ontario’s provincial government rather than the federal cabinet, Trump’s reaction forced Ottawa to intervene. In a carefully worded statement, Carney expressed “regret for any misunderstanding” and emphasized that “the ad does not reflect Canada’s federal stance on U.S. trade policy.” According to The Washington Post, Carney even reached out to Trump personally to offer an apology—an unusual act in modern diplomacy that underscored how high the stakes were.
Trump acknowledged the apology publicly but refused to lift the suspension of trade talks. “I appreciate Prime Minister Carney’s words,” he said during a Mar-a-Lago press briefing. “But actions speak louder than apologies. We’ll see if Canada really wants fair trade—not propaganda.”
The ad’s creators defended their intent, claiming it was meant to “highlight the historical value of free trade” rather than criticize Trump personally. Yet political analysts in both countries saw it as a textbook case of how symbolic gestures can spiral into real-world consequences. “Reagan’s words were about global cooperation against communism, not about contemporary tariff disputes,” explained Professor Samuel Pritchard of the University of Toronto. “Re-contextualizing them during an active negotiation with a protectionist White House was politically reckless, even if rhetorically clever.”
Canadian citizens were deeply divided. Some praised Ontario for “standing up for free trade principles,” seeing it as a proud reaffirmation of Reagan-era conservatism and cross-border partnership. Others accused the provincial government of jeopardizing livelihoods for political theater. Social-media platforms were soon flooded with hashtags such as #ReaganAdGate and #TariffWarNorth. Polls conducted by the Toronto Star indicated that 42% of Canadians supported the ad, while 47% thought it was ill-timed and diplomatically irresponsible.
For small business owners in Ontario and Quebec, the timing could not have been worse. Tariff hikes immediately disrupted auto-parts exports and timber shipments. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce estimated losses exceeding $2.4 billion within the first two weeks of the new tariff regime. The Toronto Stock Exchange saw its manufacturing index fall by nearly 4% in a single day—its steepest drop since early 2023.
In the United States, the political narrative was equally polarized. Trump’s supporters hailed the move as evidence of his “uncompromising defense of American workers,” while his critics accused him of hypersensitivity and using trade policy to punish political speech abroad. Several U.S. senators from border states, including Michigan and New York, quietly urged the administration to de-escalate, citing mounting pressure from local businesses dependent on cross-border supply chains.
Mark Carney’s apology, intended as a pragmatic gesture, triggered heated debate in Canada’s Parliament. Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre accused the prime minister of “bowing to American intimidation” and undermining Canadian sovereignty. Carney countered that leadership demanded “preventing a rhetorical dispute from turning into an economic war.” His cautionary tone reflected the grim reality that Canada could ill afford another prolonged tariff standoff, especially after years of global inflation and energy-price volatility.
Meanwhile, the United States began leveraging the dispute in broader trade negotiations with Europe and Mexico, signaling that Washington was prepared to use tariffs not merely as economic tools but as instruments of political discipline. Analysts warned that such tactics risked eroding trust even among America’s closest allies. The Reagan-ad episode, they argued, revealed how fragile diplomatic etiquette had become in an era of social-media-driven politics and impulsive leadership.
For historians, the irony was impossible to miss. Ronald Reagan—whose words were meant to defend free markets—had unintentionally become the centerpiece of a 21st-century trade war. The contrast between Reagan’s optimism and Trump’s transactional realism encapsulated a profound shift in American conservatism: from a belief in open exchange to a strategy rooted in economic nationalism and leverage.
The “Reagan Ad Affair,” as international media dubbed it, may one day be remembered less for its economic cost and more for its symbolic power. It captured a moment when an old speech from the Cold War could still shake the foundations of modern diplomacy—when images, not policies, defined the fate of nations. In an age where political theater travels faster than policy restraint, one provincial ad in Canada became a global lesson in the perilous intersection of media, ego, and economics.

The US is not planning to conduct nuclear explosions, Energy Secretary Chris Wright has said, calming global concerns after President Donald Trump called on the military to resume weapons testing.

“These are not nuclear explosions,” Wright told Fox News on Sunday. “These are what we call non-critical explosions.”

The comments come days after Trump wrote on Truth Social that he had directed defence officials to “start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis” with rival powers.

But Wright, whose agency oversees testing, said people living in the Nevada desert should have “no worries” about seeing a mushroom cloud.

“Americans near historic test sites such as the Nevada National Security Site have no cause for concern,” Wright said. “So you’re testing all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry, and they set up the nuclear explosion.”

Trump’s comments on Truth Social last week were interpreted by many as a sign the US was preparing to restart full-scale nuclear blasts for the first time since 1992.

In an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS, which was recorded on Friday and aired on Sunday, Trump reiterated his position.

“I’m saying that we’re going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do, yes,” Trump said when asked by CBS’s Norah O’Donnell if he planned for the US to detonate a nuclear weapon for the first time in more than 30 years.

“Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it,” he added.

Russia and China have not carried out such tests since 1990 and 1996 respectively.

Pressed further on the topic, Trump said: “They don’t go and tell you about it.”

“I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test,” he said, adding North Korea and Pakistan to the list of nations allegedly testing their arsenals.

On Monday, China’s foreign ministry denied conducting nuclear weapons tests.

As a “responsible nuclear-weapons state, China has always… upheld a self-defence nuclear strategy and abided by its commitment to suspend nuclear testing”, spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a regular press conference in Beijing.

She added that China hoped the US would “take concrete actions to safeguard the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime and maintain global strategic balance and stability”.

On Thursday, Russia too denied it had carried out nuclear tests.

“Regarding the tests of Poseidon and Burevestnik, we hope that the information was conveyed correctly to President Trump,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, referencing the names of Russian weapons. “This cannot in any way be interpreted as a nuclear test.”

North Korea is the only country that has carried out nuclear testing since the 1990s – and even Pyongyang announced a moratorium in 2018.

The exact number of nuclear warheads held by each country is kept secret in each case – but Russia is thought to have a total of about 5,459 warheads while the US has about 5,177, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

The US-based ACA gives slightly higher estimates, saying America’s nuclear stockpile sits at about 5,225 warheads, while Russia has approximately 5,580.

China is the world’s third largest nuclear power with about 600 warheads, France has 290, the United Kingdom 225, India 180, Pakistan 170, Israel 90 and North Korea 50, the FAS says.

According to US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), China has roughly doubled its nuclear arsenal in the past five years and is expected to exceed 1,000 weapons by 2030.

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : The United States was founded as a nation of immigrants—a place where people from every corner of the world sought refuge, dignity, and opportunity. Apart from the Native Americans, everyone who calls America home today descends from immigrants who crossed oceans and deserts to rebuild their lives on its soil. From the earliest settlers of England, Ireland, and Germany to the waves of Italians, Poles, and Jews who followed, immigration was never just a demographic process—it was America’s identity, its heartbeat, and its greatest strength.
For more than two centuries, immigration fueled the growth of the American economy, populated its vast frontiers, and shaped its unmatched diversity. Yet, the same nation that once prided itself on being a beacon for the oppressed has gradually turned hostile toward the very idea of immigration itself—especially when the immigrants come with darker skin, foreign tongues, or unfamiliar faiths.
Historically, the earliest immigrants were Europeans—white, Christian, and culturally similar to the Anglo founders. Assimilation was easy because whiteness acted as a passport to belonging. By 1900, nearly 80 percent of America’s foreign-born population came from Europe. Even then, there were prejudices against Italians, Irish, and Eastern Europeans, but time erased their differences. Within a generation, the children of Polish or German immigrants were “simply American.”
But the narrative changed after the U.S. began military and political interventions in non-white regions—from Vietnam to Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. These wars displaced millions, many of whom sought refuge in the very country that had destabilized their homelands. Asylum seekers from the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa arrived not out of choice, but desperation. Unlike their European predecessors, their darker skin and unfamiliar cultures became barriers to assimilation.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, nearly 45 million immigrants now live in the United States—making up about 13.7 percent of the total population. Yet, attitudes toward them remain deeply divided along racial lines. Surveys by Pew Research (2024) show that over 60 percent of white conservatives believe immigrants “burden the nation,” while 70 percent of non-white Americans view them as vital contributors to the economy.
Under the Trump administration’s second term, America is witnessing an unprecedented tightening of immigration laws. The new Senate immigration bill, reportedly enjoying bipartisan momentum, seeks to cut off federal and state benefits to all immigrants, regardless of legal status—permanent residents, work-visa holders, or even those who have contributed taxes for years. It is a striking shift from the nation’s foundational promise that anyone who works hard and abides by the law can earn both livelihood and dignity.
Simultaneously, federal and transport departments are enforcing regulations that restrict immigrant participation in key industries such as trucking, logistics, and services. Commercial driving licenses for immigrants are being rescinded, and companies employing non-citizen drivers face heavy penalties. The crackdown extends beyond the workplace: ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has intensified raids and detentions across states, with reports of overcrowded detention centers and deportations even of long-time green-card holders.
These policies have drawn resistance from governors, business owners, and human-rights groups, who argue that the U.S. economy relies heavily on immigrant labor. In healthcare alone, foreign-born workers constitute nearly 17 percent of the workforce, including 28 percent of physicians and surgeons. In hospitality, agriculture, and construction, immigrants represent between 30 and 50 percent of employees. The restaurant and hotel sectors—worth over $1.1 trillion annually—would collapse without them.
America’s anti-immigration wave is not rooted in economics but politics. The irony is that while immigrants are blamed for “stealing jobs,” unemployment in 2025 remains near 3.9 percent, and companies are desperate for workers. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, there are 9 million unfilled jobs, many in sectors shunned by native-born Americans due to low wages or high physical demands.
Historically, immigrants have powered America’s economic rise. More than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children—names like Google, Tesla, Pfizer, and Apple. Collectively, these companies contribute over $8 trillion to the U.S. economy each year. Yet, today, the same immigrants who sustain the economy are vilified as threats to national security and social order.
Social-media platforms echo with xenophobic calls to “deport them all,” forgetting that the nation’s wealth was built not only on the labor of immigrants but also on the exploitation of other nations. The United States and its NATO allies waged decades of wars in resource-rich regions—extracting oil, minerals, and trade routes—and then turned away the refugees of those same wars. Libya’s collapse, Syria’s civil war, and Afghanistan’s disintegration are all painful reminders that Western intervention created chaos whose human cost now knocks at their own doors.
America’s short political memory compounds the tragedy. Each administration rewrites the moral code of migration. Obama expanded DACA and refugee resettlement; Trump dismantled both. Biden restored limited protections, but the political pendulum swung back again with renewed hostility. The result is a system that treats immigrants as expendable assets—welcomed when needed, discarded when convenient.
Even worse, detention centers have multiplied, with National Guard units deployed in several states to assist ICE. Civil-rights lawyers document cases of long-time residents deported without trial, separating families and traumatizing children. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reports over 200,000 deportations in 2025 alone—many involving individuals who have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade.
The roots of this crisis are moral and structural. America cannot destabilize other nations through wars, sanctions, and regime change, then demonize those who flee the wreckage. Immigration is the mirror of foreign policy. Every missile dropped abroad creates another migrant seeking safety.
If the United States wishes to curb immigration sustainably, it must let other nations live with dignity—free from exploitation of their oil, minerals, and industries. Let their people build prosperity at home instead of being forced to cross borders for survival. China’s model offers an instructive contrast: by investing in its own citizens through education, infrastructure, and industry, it has sharply reduced outward migration.
America, too, must return to its founding promise—one that values people not by color or country, but by character and contribution. Instead of walls and bans, it needs reforms that regularize honest workers, integrate them through civic education, and penalize employers who exploit them.
The world once admired the United States for its open arms, not its closed borders. The Statue of Liberty still stands in New York Harbor, holding a torch once meant to light the path for the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” But today, that light flickers. A nation that rose from the dreams of immigrants risks collapsing under the weight of its own fear and hypocrisy.
To preserve its greatness, America must remember its origin story. It was not whiteness, wealth, or weapons that built this country—it was human hope. And hope knows no color, no visa, and no border.