Borden largely ran on a platform of opposing the reciprocity agreement under the grounds that it would "Americanize" Canada and claimed that there was a secret plan on the part of the Taft administration to annex Canada, with the reciprocity agreement being only the first step. In his first speech given in London, Borden declared, "It is beyond doubt that the leading public men of the United States, its leading press, and the mass of its people believe annexation of the Dominion to be the ultimate, inevitable, and desirable result of this proposition, and for that reason support it."