Canadian wildfire smoke ravages many places in the United States. Trump threatens: This bill will be included in tariffs!

Canadian wildfire smoke ravages many places in the United States. Trump threatens: This bill will be included in tariffs!

On Friday (July 17) local time, U.S. President Trump blamed Canada for the spread of Canadian wildfire smoke to all parts of the United States, and said that the "incalculable costs" caused by dealing with pollution will be added to the existing tariffs on Canadian goods.

Trump said he would call Canadian Prime Minister Carney to ask how he planned to deal with the "totally unacceptable" situation. "We hold Canada accountable for their failure to properly maintain their forests... resulting in the United States suffering from avoidable dirty, polluted, and unhealthy air," he posted on Truth Social.

"This is willful negligence and is becoming an annual phenomenon that is costing the United States billions of dollars. The cost of this pollution must be factored into the tariffs Canada currently pays." Carney's office has yet to respond to the tariff threat.

The cross-border haze issue has once again triggered controversy in public opinion between the United States and Canada. Four Republican congressmen from Michigan in the United States have jointly sent a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Carney, asking Canada to strengthen the management of forest fires.

In this regard, Carney said on Thursday that the United States can take more measures to combat climate change that is causing global temperatures to rise and extreme weather to intensify. Thick smoke from hundreds of wildfires in Canada has blanketed much of the U.S.

Midwest and East Coast this week, and other major cities including New York, Chicago and Philadelphia have issued warnings of severe deterioration in air quality. Canadian cities such as Toronto have also been affected.

Chicago's air quality on Thursday ranked among the worst among all cities in the world, with a pollution index of more than 600, twice the level deemed "hazardous" by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to data from air quality monitoring company IQAir on Friday morning Beijing time. Detroit and New York followed.

Many of the fires this year have occurred in the vast Canadian province of Ontario and are concentrated in the remote and sparsely populated northwestern region of the province, where the only means of transportation is by plane.

So far, the burned area has reached 650,000 acres (2,630 square kilometers), compared with 600,000 acres during the same period last year. Thousands of people have been evacuated. Climate experts say rising temperatures are leading to drier forests and more frequent wildfires.

"As the climate warms, we are facing more extreme weather such as high temperatures, droughts, high winds, and these conditions are conducive to the occurrence of wildfires, so we will see more wildfires," said Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildfire research at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia.

Shortly after taking office in 2025, Trump imposed tariffs on a number of key imports from Canada. This comes amid a period of tense relations between Washington and Ottawa. Earlier this month, U.S.

Trade Representative Greer said the White House would choose not to renew the 2020 trade deal with Canada and Mexico on a long-term basis and would instead commit to rolling negotiations, which could lead to years of lengthy renegotiations between the U.S. and its two major trading partners.

It’s unclear what legal basis Trump could rely on to impose tariffs on Canada in response to the effects of wildfire smoke. Carney has been one of Trump's sharpest critics during his second term, fiercely pushing back against Trump's claims that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state and repeated U.S. threats to impose higher tariffs on Canada. (

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