With Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and his Tories re-elected only days before after Canada’s 1988 free trade election, President Ronald Reagan took to the airwaves in his weekly radio address to extol the virtues of the agreement.
“This week, as we prepared for Thanksgiving, Canada held an important election, and I'm pleased to again send my congratulations to Prime Minister Mulroney,” Reagan said. “One of the important issues in the Canadian election was trade. And like our own citizens earlier this month (with the election of George H.W. Bush as the next American President), our neighbours have sent a strong message, rejecting protectionism and reaffirming that more trade, not less, is the wave of the future.”
“Here in America,” he continued, “as we reflect on the many things we have to be grateful for, we should take a moment to recognize that one of the key factors behind our nation's great prosperity is the open trade policy that allows the American people to freely exchange goods and services with free people around the world.”
You can watch President Reagan delivering this address at this link.