Toronto, Canada - Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Monday defended the anti-tariff ad campaign that sent US President Donald Trump into a meltdown and said that it had successfully "sparked a conversation."

"We have achieved our goal," Ford told reporters in Toronto on Monday, revealing that the campaign had attracted "over a billion impressions around the world" on social media.

"We generated a conversation that wasn't happening in the US," he said, days after an infuriated Trump broke off trade talks with Ottawa over the ad.

The ad featured the voice of former President Ronald Reagan, a Republican Party icon, expressing views that opposed the kind of trade war that Trump is currently waging against the US' northern neighbor.

Despite negotiations closing in on a potential trade deal in recent weeks, Trump abruptly called them off and issued 10% tariffs against Canada after the ad dropped.

He has since vowed not to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney "for a while."

Ford said that the ad campaign would be suspended on Monday in a bid to help Carney resume the talks, but the damage became seemingly irreversible when it aired on US television during the first two games of the World Series.

Ford's state of Ontario has been hit especially hard by US tariffs, particularly in the automotive sector, which recently saw Jeep manufacturer Stellantis announce that it will move its production to Illinois.

"Ontario's ad was intended to initiate a conversation about the impact of tariffs on American workers," Ford wrote on X alongside of a clip of him being interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN.

"In seven days, it achieved 11.4 billion views, raising awareness of President Reagan's warnings against protectionism," he said.