{"success":true,"data":{"id":"049f2d20-87e4-472d-b898-a1874b6e04fd","title":"Trump Won’t Say Two Words When Blaming Canada for the Wildfire Smoke","summary":"The haze that blanketed the U.S. last week gave the president a familiar target to punish—while ignoring the real problem.","content":"*   Account[Account](https://slate.com/account)[Sign out](https://slate.com/sign-out)  \n\nMenu Menu\n\n Light \n\n Light  Dark  Auto \n\n Light \n\n Light  Dark  Auto \n\n# Why Trump Wants Smoke With Canada—but Not _From_ It\n\n## The wildfire haze that blanketed the U.S. last week gave the president a familiar target to punish—while ignoring the real problem.\n\n By [Nitish Pahwa](https://slate.com/author/nitish-pahwa)Follow Nitish  Signed Up For Email Alerts Error Signing Up For Email Alerts \n**Enter your email to receive alerts for this author.**\n\n Thanks for signing up! You can [manage your newsletter subscriptions](https://slate.com/newsletters) at any time. \n\n You're already subscribed to the aa_Nitish_Pahwa newsletter. You can [manage your newsletter subscriptions](https://slate.com/newsletters) at any time. \n\n We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again, or [manage all your newsletter subscriptions here](https://slate.com/newsletters) . \n\nEmail address: \n\n By signing up, you agree to our [Privacy Policy](https://slate.com/privacy) and [Terms](https://slate.com/terms). \n\n[Sign in](https://slate.com/sign-in) or [create an account](https://slate.com/create-account) to better manage your email preferences.\n\n#### Unsubscribe from email alerts\n\nAre you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for **Nitish Pahwa**?\n\nYes, unsubscribe\n\nPhoto illustration by Slate. Photos by Harry Langer/DeFodi via Getty Images and Kevin Carter/Getty Images.\n\nOnly Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. [Become a member](https://slate.com/plus?redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fslate.com%2Ftechnology%2F2026%2F07%2Ftrump-canada-wildfire-smoke.html%3Fvia%3Drss) to share 10 free articles a month.\n\nPresident Donald Trump is displeased and waging economic war with Canada yet again, this time because…our northern neighbor isn’t doing enough to fight the effects of climate change?\n\n“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!” the [chief executive wrote](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116936952365066409) in a Friday Truth Social post, referring to the intense clouds of wildfire smog of Ontario origin that are choking states and currently wafting as far as [Seattle](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/weather/seattle-weather-wildfire-smoke-to-roll-into-western-wa-highs-over-90/) and [Pittsburgh](https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/state/pennsylvania/pittsburgh/2026/07/20/pittsburgh-code-orange-wildfire-smoke-air-quality/90981891007/). “Canada has refused to engage in basic Forest Management and Debris Removal…costing the United States Billions of Dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying.” (On Monday, Trump rolled out new 50 percent tariffs on a wide array of Canadian goods, including alcohol and hockey sticks, but an official told CNBC that [these are _separate_ from his plans](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/20/trump-tariffs-canada-trade.html) to hike trade taxes in response to the wildfires.)\n\nThe president also revealed to the media that he had confronted Prime Minister Mark Carney during Sunday’s FIFA World Cup finals in New Jersey. “I told him, you know, you got to stop these fires from coming in and poisoning our air,” said Trump. “If we can help them, we’ll help them. But maybe they should pay us some damages or something, or we should do some tariffs.” After some more rambling, the Donald hit on something of an inconvenient truth. “I never remembered this happening,” [he added](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-mark-carney-wildfire-tariff-canada-smoke-b3018006.html). “Over the last four or five years you saw it starting to take place. I never remembered it happening before.”\n\nIt’s almost like _the climate is changing_!\n\nIf you didn’t know better, you might have thought Trump was taking Carney to task for failing to stem the greenhouse gas emissions that have made North America hotter and sparked the conditions for Ontario’s raging forest fires. Such criticism would have been warranted, in light of the stark gap between the PM’s [climate-conscious rhetoric](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-energy-sovereignty-oil-climate-9.7265441) and his [pro-fossil-fuel policy](https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/under-torontos-dystopian-haze-canadas-pivot-away-from-climate-leadership-was-impossible-to-ignore/article_f141be02-cd29-4199-a2e6-a776f88b5df4.html). What we’re actually seeing, however, is something far more craven: an attempt to seize upon one of the president’s most specific, oddest environmental fixations in order to rattle the imperial saber at the north’s Liberal government. By vaguely—[and inaccurately](https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/smoke-gets-in-yourhole-where-your)—gesturing toward forest management, Trump is imposing material punishment upon a fellow petrostate for failing to mitigate the effects of its still-too-high emissions. It’s a way to attack Canada over climate change without ever using those words—and without even _suggesting_ the real policies that would help North America avoid these forest-and-smoke cycles year after year.\n\nIt’s not the first time the MAGA-era GOP has scolded Canada thus. Last summer, Midwestern Republicans sent various letters to Ottawa over its “[failure to prevent and control wildfires](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/canada-wildfires-republicans-experts-criticism-climate-change-1.7604323)”—without, of course, mentioning climate change. This year the clamor is louder, more aggressive, and tinged with showy economic threats. Michigan Rep. John James, running for governor in a state that saw some of the worst air pollution from the smog, announced he would introduce legislation [imposing sanctions on Canada](http://detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2026/07/17/canada-wildfire-smoke-michigan-john-james-matt-hall-sanctions-hearings/90953021007/). Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno also offered to [follow suit](https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/midwestern-republicans-blaming-canada-levelling-threats-for-drifting-wildfire-smoke) in his chamber, while Montana Rep. Tim Sheehy accused Canada of running its firefighting operations “like a Chinese protection racket,” in a message [approvingly amplified](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116938579137506694) by Trump.\n\n## Related From Slate\n\nThe second Trump administration is thus threatening Canada threefold over its hazy call for improved forest management: Failure to contain the smoke could mean even more tariffs on top of the current trade war escalation, full blockades of certain goods and services, and even a pullback of American assistance for Canada’s firefights. And since the White House’s climate denial remains strong, it’s unclear just what it’s expecting Canada to do here—other than retaliate in ways that hit the U.S. even harder. Conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford has already suggested that Ottawa should strike back proportionately: “[tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/livestory/new-trump-tariffs-canada-us-trade-cusma-usmca-9.7277143).”\n\nBefore this point, the administration’s policy toward Canada had been nothing less than a self-own. The constant trade-warring and “51 st state” menacing bred such anti-American sentiment across Canada that our longtime friends in the north turned against us decisively—and effectively. Boycotts of U.S. whiskey have [decimated a key economic driver](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/american-alcohol-boycotts-bans-canada-trade-war-nslc-nova-scotia-9.7194289) for the American South. Major cities throughout the States have seen [crushing drops in Canadian tourism](https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/42-drop-canadian-visits-u-140500016.html) and business it affords to costly [enterprises like ski resorts](https://www.freeskier.com/canadian-border-us-ski-resorts-felt-the-affects-of-a-strained-relation-this-ski-s). And the Canadian government as a whole is planning a pivot away from the U.S. in the long term, welcoming [cheap Chinese electric cars](https://thewalrus.ca/chinese-electric-vehicle-deal/) and building out [oil-and-gas pipelines](https://www.ft.com/content/e5ffb51d-40ee-4274-b6f2-2eb6cd5c4f89?syn-25a6b1a6=1) to increase energy exports to Asia.\n\nThose pipelines will worsen the conditions that set off Canada’s devastating wildfires—but that’s not what Trump is worrying about at all. When the U.S. president talks about “Debris Removal” and the “Brush” in forestry, he’s generally referring to prescribed or controlled burning, an [Indigenous-pioneered environmental practice](https://e360.yale.edu/features/lori-daniels-interview) that slows the rapid spread of forest fires in dry climates by clearing out ground-level scraps (twigs, dead plant matter, bushes, etc.) that would otherwise provide extra kindling for the flames. You may remember the president invoking it repeatedly in California, after 2018’s [deadly Camp Fire](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/trump-visits-as-california-struggles-to-locate-1000-people) and during [last year’s Palisades burns](https://slate.com/technology/2025/01/california-los-angeles-palisades-wildfire-conspiracy-theories.html). He’s not wrong about [the merits](https://slate.com/technology/2021/08/fire-service-controlled-burns-wildfire-suppression-policy-california.html) of controlled burns, but he’s wrong that they’re a straightforward panacea for wildfire season: Climate effects like drought, temperature hikes, and the spread of plant diseases strengthen fire conditions, and those climate consequences are bolstered by unceasing carbon and methane emissions that trap heat. Worse, burned trees release the carbon they were storing, then destroy other plant life that could keep that carbon absorbed.","source_name":"Slate","source_url":"https://slate.com/technology/2026/07/trump-canada-wildfire-smoke.html?via=rss","url":"https://slate.com/technology/2026/07/trump-canada-wildfire-smoke.html?via=rss","author":"Nitish Pahwa","author_name":"Nitish Pahwa","published_at":"2026-07-21T18:01:52.000Z","publication_date":"2026-07-21T18:01:52.000Z","image_url":"https://compote.slate.com/images/8d1fed5b-09af-49d1-91fd-6fef90e6a106.jpeg?crop=1560%2C1040%2Cx0%2Cy0","category":"world","topic":"world","tags":[],"political_bias":null,"bias_score":null,"confidence_score":null,"credibility_score":null,"factual_quality":null,"reading_time":6,"word_count":1141,"view_count":0,"breaking":false,"breaking_news":false,"ai_analysis":null,"fact_check_status":"unverified","archive_status":"hot","language":null}}