Trump demands Canada pay for smoke as its forests burn

More than 900 wildfires are burning across Canada. Over 200 are out of control.

The smoke has crossed into the United States, from the Midwest to the Northeast, and people have been told to stay indoors.

Donald Trump's response was to announce he would put it on the tariff bill.

“We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests ... and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air,” he posted on Truth Social.

“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.”

Here is what he is billing them for.

Nearly 28,000 square kilometres have burned. Thousands have been evacuated.

The fires are concentrated in remote northwest Ontario, where the only way in is by plane.

Namaygoosisagagun First Nation was burned to the ground. Residents left by boat.

“There was nothing remaining,” incident commander Matthew Hoppe said.

“So as you can imagine, the membership is totally distraught, upset, overwhelmed, lost.”

Thunder Bay, a city of 110,000, is at capacity housing evacuees.

The two countries have sent each other planes for 44 years under a mutual aid agreement signed in 1982.

In January 2025, when 14 major fires tore through Los Angeles and San Diego County, Canada sent two airtankers from Quebec, two crews and two overhead personnel from Alberta, and a crew from British Columbia.

Five months later, when Canada was burning through its second-worst season on record, the US sent 214 resources north.

That is the arrangement Trump is proposing to replace with an invoice.

Then there is the part he didn't post about.

The World Cup final is on Monday morning AEST, at an open-air stadium in the Meadowlands, in front of about 80,000 people.

Spain trained outside in air rated hazardous on Thursday, which experts said should have been an indoor session. FIFA and the Spanish federation didn't answer questions about it.

“For a game that is as important as a World Cup final, you have to be able to shut out external factors as much as possible,” Spain's Mikel Merino said.

Rain is forecast for Saturday. What comes behind it is the problem.

“It looks like there is another smoky air mass following in behind that system, but it's not clear right now how much or how it might reach New York or New Jersey,” said Mark Parrington of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

Wildfire smoke attacks nearly every system in the body and kills tens of thousands of people a year. It spikes asthma cases within hours.

Even moderate air hurts athletes, according to Chantal Darquenne, professor of medicine at UC San Diego.

“It's kind of a dose-dependent effect,” she said.

“If it's moderate, it's going to be less of an effect but it's still going to be there, especially because they are doing vigorous exercise during these events.”

At a rehearsal for the halftime show, some of the New York Philharmonic wore masks. A baseball game in Cleveland was postponed.

Trump was meeting FIFA president Gianni Infantino ahead of the final. His FIFA task force has been monitoring the smoke.

The United States is having an above-average fire year of its own — nearly 15,000 square kilometres burned against a ten-year average of 11,000.

Nobody is billing anyone for that.

“As our climate warms, we're seeing more conducive hot, dry, windy, more extreme weather, and we're going to see more fire,” said Mike Flannigan, a wildland fire professor at Thompson Rivers University.

Mark Carney says the US could do more about the thing making the forests burn.

He and Trump are both expected at the final on Monday.