A new irritant has entered the chat in the messy Canada-U.S. trade war. As the two sides fight battles over dairy, metals, autos, alcohol and lumber, President Donald Trump has floated a new front: wildfires.
As cities as far apart as Chicago and Washington dealt in recent days with dangerously poor air quality, Trump threatened Canada with a familiar hammer — tariffs — and at least one U.S. lawmaker wants to slap sanctions on the northern neighbor. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress blame Canadians for poor forest management that they say is allowing the blazes to get out of hand.
It’s a familiar political cudgel to observers of the president’s critiques of California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wildfire response. But experts say the Republican attack ignores the reality on the ground in Canada, where megafires are swallowing vast tracts of northern boreal forests — the source of much of the smoke crossing the border.
Unlike in much of the United States, many fires rage far from human settlements — and are in forests so remote that they are virtually unmanageable. In fact, experts predict hotter, drier weather driven by climate change will likely make fires across these tracts of wilderness a regular fixture of summer.
