We’ve had a couple of bad days here in Minnesota — the smoke from the wildfires up north has made breathing uncomfortable, and for a while Minneapolis was ranked somthing like the third most smoggy city in the world. It’s not too bad today, although more smoke is expected, but fortunately, Donald Trump is lurching into action with a solution. Blame Canada!
President Donald Trump on Friday blasted Canada for wildfires enveloping swaths of the United States in a smoky haze and said he would add the costs of that pollution to existing tariffs.
Calling the situation “totally unacceptable,” Trump accused Ottawa of failing to address what he said were the causes of the fires in Canada, whose smoke has sent air quality to dangerous levels in major U.S. cities in recent days.
The billions of dollars in costs inflicted on the U.S. as a result of the air pollution “must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
I am confident that Canada does not like to see their forests on fire, and that Canadians are as incapable of breathing smoke as Americans are. I don’t see the point in punishing Canada further, but all an authoritarian can see is an excuse to punish. This isn’t going to help at all. What does he think Canada needs a punitive incentive for?
“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,” Trump wrote.
Oh, right. This is his weird idea that the proper way to maintain a forest is by raking up all the needles and brush.
“You’ve got to take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forests, it’s very important,” Trump said amid the charred ruins of Paradise — his first stop on the tour.
Trump went on to explain that the president of Finland, whom he met on an overseas trip a week earlier, told him about raking the forest floors. “He called it a forest nation,” Trump said, “and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don’t have any problem.”
The president of Finland never said any such thing.
But all you Canadians need to get out in 270 million hectares of wilderness and start raking.
(No, not really. I’m sorry, but our president is a goddamn motherfucking freaking MORON.)
Oceanoxia has a much more thorough post on this idiocy.
Does Cheeto Benito still not understand that it is the importers paying the tariffs?
What Trump “understands” can fit in a VERY thin book. Maybe thinner than the book “Non-lethal Animals of Australia”!
@Snarki, child of Loki
The section on business and tax fraud, and especially the section on various forms of corruption (soliciting and accepting bribes, selling pardons for fun and profit, insider trading based on actions while in office, ad infinitum) stacked up will reach orbit.
Canadians go to the US to fight wildfires (and vice versa). Last Sunday Nicholas Dale a helicopter pilot from Sooke, British Columbia, was killed while fighting a wildfire in Colorado (helicopters are used for collecting water from nearby lakes or reservoirs and dropping them on fires among other things). He is the fourth firefighter in the last month killed in Colorado (three were killed in a burnover on June 27: Emily Barker of Michigan, Nick Hutcherson of Arizona, and Sydney Watson of Alabama).
Nicholas Dale was a contract worker with a US company, but, entire teams have been sent in the past (such as the Palisades fire in 2025). In return US teams have gone to Canada. https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/international-support
Let’s hope his next action isn’t to destroy or damage this cooperation (further).
If Canada’s boreal forests cannot be kept safe from massive fires, then this climate change-driven disaster will ultimately sweep it clean of trees. Trump’s recourse is of course to blame Canada, despite the fact that he and his minions don’t believe in climate change and are largely to blame for their ignorance.
Finnlanders don’t use rakes.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fomsfxsy34fz11.jpg
Trump will say anything that makes him feel good, makes him an expert, makes him stand out or has the potential for him to receive a prize, medal or monument in his honor. Also, he believes belittling or blaming others (people, countries or entire races) for the evils in the world elevates his status. Most of what he spews is to distract from his corruption and put the spotlight on himself. This is the guy who made the Reflecting Pool problem worse by pumping millions of $ into it. The Reflecting Pool debacle is Trump. He is like Godzilla walking through Tokyo, no offense to Godzilla.
Trump lives in his self-created fantasy world and believes the rest of the world should live in there with him. Anyone expecting anything else from Trump at this point is disconnected from reality.