Michigan Republican Mike Rogers breaks with Trump on Canada, calling in a new Senate ad for an end to the ‘tariff war’

Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee in Michigan’s closely fought race for an open U.S. Senate seat, is calling for an end to the trade war with Canada, breaking with President Donald Trump weeks before the midterm elections. In a 30-second ad released Wednesday, Rogers sits in a sports bar with a Labatt, a Canadian brand popular in border states, CBC News reported. An image of the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Windsor and Detroit, appears on screen as he speaks.

“Drinking a Labatt and watching the Red Wings. Man, it just doesn’t get any more Michigan than that,” Rogers says, according to a transcript posted by his campaign. “Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war — now,” he adds, promising to “bring both parties together to lower your prices.” The campaign said the ad will play statewide as part of a seven-figure coordinated buy between Rogers for Senate and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The ad does not mention Trump, The Hill noted, and it closes with an attack on his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, over taxes.

Trump was dismissive when reporters asked him about the spot in the Oval Office later Wednesday, recasting its message. “Well, I viewed it as though he wanted Canada to make a deal,” he said, according to CBC. “Canada has been ripping us off for many, many years and they’re not going to rip us off anymore,” the president added.

The ad is an about-face for Rogers, who had endorsed the tariffs on Canadian goods. In a Fox News interview this summer, he called Trump’s trade policy, designed to “reindustrialize” the U.S., “huge for us,” and said Canada’s push to sell hundreds of thousands of cars into Michigan should be “absolutely unacceptable” because those exports “undercut the people who build cars and car parts,” CBC reported. “The Canadians have not been good partners on this,” he said at the time. He had also defended the tariffs as “necessary,” and told USA Today last month they were not a “one-size-fits-all solution,” The Hill reported.

El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health official who leads Rogers in most public opinion surveys, pounced. Rogers “must have had one too many of those Labatts,” El-Sayed said. “You cheer-led this tariff war from the beginning and you’re flip-flopping now because your poll numbers are in free fall,” he wrote on social media. Polling suggests the tariffs are deeply unpopular in the United States: only 26 per cent of Americans surveyed for a Politico poll late last month said levying tariffs on Canadian goods was the right thing to do, according to CBC.

The stakes for Michigan are high. Since August, Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney have been locked in a tit-for-tat tariff war. Trump first imposed 50 per cent levies on $27.6 billion worth of Canadian goods in August, and Carney matched them “dollar for dollar” in early September, The Hill reported. Trump has also threatened 50 per cent tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, auto parts and steel starting Jan. 1. Citing Canadian government data, The Hill said Michigan businesses import $43.5 billion worth of goods from Canada a year, with vehicles and parts accounting for roughly 48 per cent, while vehicles and parts make up $10.2 billion of the $21.2 billion in goods the state sends to Canada.

Rogers is not the only Republican shifting tone. Rep. John James, who is running for governor of Michigan, said Tuesday he has urged U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to return to negotiations with Canadian officials. “We must get back to the table, stop acting like children and negotiate a reciprocal, fair and mutually beneficial arrangement,” James said during a televised debate, according to The Hill. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, another border state, has also publicly opposed the trade war.

The auto industries on both sides of the border are among the most closely integrated cross-border manufacturing relationships in the world, CBC noted, with some components crossing the border a half-dozen times or more. Canada is also a major customer: about three-quarters of all vehicles sold in Canada are imported, the majority from U.S. plants in Michigan, Indiana and Texas, and Dearborn-based Ford has been the No. 1 vehicle brand in Canada for years.

Sources: CBC News (Oct. 7, 2026); The Hill (Oct. 7, 2026); Rogers for Senate: ad announcement and transcript.