Trump threatens tariffs on Canada over wildfire smoke as climate tensions rise

Donald Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on Canada, blaming the country for wildfire smoke drifting across the border and choking large parts of the United States in a striking escalation of his long-running hostility towards Ottawa.

Posting on Truth Social on Friday, the US president said Canada was failing to properly manage its forests and brush, and accused it of allowing “filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air” to cross into American communities. He said the “incalc...

ulable cost” of the smoke should be added to the duties Canada was already paying, and said he would speak to Prime Minister Mark Carney about what Ottawa planned to do.

Reuters reported that smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires spread over a broad swathe of the US, from the Midwest to the North-east, on Thursday and Friday, prompting health warnings and advice for residents to stay indoors. Axios said the smoke has increasingly become a regular cross-border problem, with the Canadian government acknowledging that hotter and drier conditions linked to climate change are worsening the country’s wildfire crisis.

The latest threat followed separate remarks from Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, who has said he will introduce legislation targeting Canada over the smoke. CBS News reported that Trump placed the blame on Canada for not containing the blazes, while UPI said more than a dozen states in the Midwest and North-east were under air-quality alerts.

Canadian officials have so far kept their response limited. According to CBC, a spokesperson for the Canadian embassy in Washington said ambassador Mark Wiseman had been speaking directly with administration and congressional officials about the wildfire emergency in Canada and the effects of smoke on both countries. Carney, when asked about the issue, told reporters in French that climate change was everyone’s responsibility, including the United States.

The political exchange underscores a growing transborder dispute over a crisis that scientists say is being intensified by a warming climate. It also highlights the limits of Trump’s tariff-first approach: as Melanie D’Arrigo, a US healthcare campaigner, argued in response, any extra duties would ultimately be paid by American consumers.

Source: Noah Wire Services