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And the US is well within its rights to set trade policy however it likes. The government of Ontario clearly has the money to spend on foreign propaganda so clearly they're not suffering too badly.
It probably wasn't (considering the incentives at play, I think the corresponding denouncement was genuine), and that's actually kind of a big deal. Individual provinces have been more effective at influencing foreign trade policy than the Federal government is, for better (Smith) or for worse (Ford). What good's the Federal government if it won't do this, and has revealed to instead be too weak to enforce message discipline on its constituents?
This is a negotiation- the corporate arm of the people of Ontario being one of the interested parties. The fact that those people still see fit to go out of its way to shitpost is actually relevant; I wouldn't want to do business with them either.
And sure, maybe the Supreme Court rules it all illegal and everything goes back to normal, in which case Ford can take a win back to his most elderly, jingoistic supporters and not spend much goodwill on the people who had to pay for them. That's the gamble he's taking here; perhaps it'll pay off, perhaps it won't.
You're assuming the average American knows or cares about Canadian political structure? Canada is a monolith to Americans, especially those living in the East (that's why the meme is '51st' and not '51 to 55'). But then again, I think this makes more sense if understood as an intra-Canadian political slapfight that more tangentially happens to involve the US.
I would not characterize the ad as 'shitposting'. Also, the relative strength of both parties will likely be reflected in how the gains from a deal are distributed among them. If the US is in a stronger position, it also has more to lose on not making a deal.
Of course, it could be that a trade deal is so insignificant that it is simply not worth the president's time. If it was a negotiation between the US and Madagascar, saying "screw you, try again in a year" at the slightest offense might be acceptable. But with Canada, not having a trade deal is leaving quite a bit of money on the table, I imagine.
Shitposting, saber-rattling, attempting to propagandize a foreign nation/people your economic future depends on for ego reasons...
For the Canadians, yes, which is the point of Trump loudly turning 360 degrees and walking away. Not really as much for the Americans.
It's actually kind of a paradox, where American foreign policy is designed to encourage a more pro-business/pro-reality elite in other countries, which then results in a stronger country that's then more able to tell the Americans 'no'.
Naturally, the hyper-conservative elite [this can also be voter blocs if political representation is sufficiently slanted in their favor, and the Canadian political system is this way by design] hates that idea, especially because the last few administrations were happy to both let them free trade their way to prosperity so long as they threw Pride parades and DEId. Thanks in great part to the US having kept this up for so long, these ideas are now the baseline conservative position, which is part of why conservative elites like them (the other reason is because it's a way to pretend they're on the side of the young).
Now that a liberal has taken power the elite in those countries feel empowered to keep on keeping on. They aren't as capable of rapid change as the Americans are, mainly because the people who were capable of that emigrated to the US a long time ago (or who never reproduced due to the deaths of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers in the Great European Mass Suicides of the 1910s and 1940s).
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