Trump Says Canada Should ‘Cough’ Up More Tariffs For The Bad Air

President Trump on July 17 condemned Canada, and specifically Ottawa, for improper forest management, leading to the recent increase in forest fires and to the encroachment of smoke and polluted air into the U.S.

“We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their forests, and brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable” Trump said. “I will call the Prime Minister to find out what they are going to do about it. The cost is incalculable!”

Canada has refused to engage in basic forest management and debris removal, Trump accused. “This is willful negligence, and becoming a yearly occurrence, costing the United States billions of dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the tariffs Canada is currently paying.”

Canada’s wildfire policies have failed to prioritize forest management; they will not cut firebreaks and will not thin their forests, according to one observer, who added,“This is the result of the undue influence of environmental groups who are firmly politically motivated and have divorced themselves from science and good stewardship. Canada and the rest of North America is suffering as a result.”

Days before Trump’s statement, four Republican members of Michigan’s congressional delegation—Reps. Jack Bergman, John James, Lisa McClain and John Moolenaar—sent a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, saying residents in their state were once again experiencing unhealthy air because of smoke drifting south from Canadian wildfires.

They wrote: “Our constituents in Michigan are once again under air quality alerts. Our hospitals are once again treating children, dialysis patients, and older residents for the effects of smoke that did not originate anywhere near them. This is the third consecutive year we have had to write to Canadian officials about a crisis that Canada has the tools to prevent and has chosen not to. We were told last year that this would be treated with urgency. It was not. We were told the causes—chronic under-investment in forest thinning, fuel reduction, and prescribed burns, along with inadequate enforcement against arson—were being addressed. They were not, or not adequately enough to matter to the people we represent. Provincial leaders have offered excuses instead of results, and in some cases have openly dismissed the health of American citizens as an inconvenience to their own summer.  We are done accepting apologies in place of action. If Canada will not manage its forests to prevent these fires, the United States will look elsewhere, and act on our own, to protect our people. That means our own agencies exploring direct involvement in cross-border fuel reduction and firefighting capacity. It means reconsidering how much benefit of the doubt this relationship continues to earn on an issue where American lungs are paying the price for Canadian inaction, year after year.”