U.S. President Donald Trump personally told Prime Minister Mark Carney to stop poisoning American air and take action to put out wildfires burning across the country.
Trump said he raised the issue of wildfire management with Carney when the two leaders appeared together to watch the World Cup Final between Argentina and Spain in East Rutherford, N.J., on Sunday.
“I told him, I mean, ‘You got to stop these fires from coming in and, you know, poisoning our air. Our air has been poisoned,'” Trump said at Joint Base Andrews after the game.
The U.S. president said he has a “good relationship” with Carney before reiterating his threat to impose financial penalties on his northern neighbour for the wildfires’ impact on U.S. air quality.
“If we can help them, we’ll help them. But maybe they should pay some damages or something, or we should do some tariffs. But it was terrible,” Trump said. “I mean you had businesses closing in particular Michigan.”
Trump threatens increased tariffs for wildfire smoke that has ‘unnecessarily invaded’ U.S.
Republicans blast Canada over wildfire smoke, air quality in northern U.S.
Cities in the state shut down beaches, splash pads, the Red Oaks water park and even indoor pools because of the toxic smoke that blanketed Michigan and other northern U.S. states.
The Detroit Free Press reported that dozens of workers at Ford’s Michigan assembly plant were taken to hospital after inhaling wildfire smoke inside non-air-conditioned plants.
Trump first threatened to make Canada pay for the cost of U.S. air quality in a Friday social media post when he joined some Republican House representatives’ broad criticism of Canada’s forest management practices calling them “wilful negligence.”
“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 president wrote in a social media post on Friday.
“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.”
This morning, I met with federal workers in Ottawa who are supporting the wildfire response efforts in Northwestern Ontario and across the country. This is one of the most intense wildfire seasons in Canadian history due to extreme heat waves and record-breaking dry conditions.… <a href=”https://t.co/ubS7Gupgam”>pic.twitter.com/ubS7Gupgam</a>
Just hours before Trump’s post on Friday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford shot back at previous comments from American politicians who have blamed Canada for the smoke in recent days.
Ford urged the Americans to stop complaining about the wildfire smoke and instead send help — like Canada has done when U.S. states were struck by recent natural disasters.
“If there’s some politicians out there chirping away, well maybe what you should do rather than complain is send support, send help, because we have done the exact same thing for our American friends. That’s what you’re supposed to do,” Ford said.
Ford made the remarks Friday in Toronto, where he said he believes Americans are good neighbours but need to start acting that way.
