Do you feel suffocated by smoky, miasmic air? Is the sky amber and apocalyptic? For the past week, wildfire smoke has covered vast regions of the United States. President Donald Trump says Canada is to blame. “The United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air,” he wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday. He threatened to impose steeper tariffs on Canada to recover the “cost of this pollution.”
But is it really Canada’s fault?
Republican members of Congress from Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, and New York also demanded answers and action. “Michiganders shouldn’t have to breathe Canada’s negligence,” Representative Lisa McClain of Michigan wrote on X, claiming that “year after year the smoke crosses the border while Canada does nothing.”
On Thursday afternoon, Representative Tom Barrett of Michigan posted a murky photo taken from inside an airplane as he was flying into the state capital of Lansing. “Do you think we should delay the Gordie Howe Bridge opening until Canada takes responsibility and gets control of these fires?” Barrett asked about the bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, that is supposed to open on July 27. The lawmakers seemed eager to hold Canada accountable for making voters feel like they’d been dropped onto the set of Mad Max.
