President Donald Trump hinted that a plan to seek revenge on Canada is in the works, but he won’t reveal it just yet.
Trump, 80, affirmed his prior threats to a reporter during a press gaggle on Sunday who asked whether he had decided on a “punishment” for the country’s wildfire smoke.
“I have, yeah,” he said. “You’ll find out about it soon.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Last month, the president threatened to punish Canada after smoke from raging wildfires in Ontario wafted into the U.S., impacting the air quality in a handful of states across the Midwest, Northeast, and mid-Atlantic.
Trump claimed that the U.S. was being “invaded” by the smoke and slapped a 50 percent tariff on a variety of Canadian imports, citing the country’s “discriminatory treatment of American products.”
Canada bit back, rescinding its invitation for U.S. officials to attend the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford told CBS News last month that Trump’s actions hurt both nations, saying, “it’s unfortunate he took this avenue with his closest friend and ally.”
Trump raged at Canada in a Truth Social post at the time. “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 quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!” Trump wrote.
“I will call the Prime Minister during the day to find out what they are going to do about it. The cost is incalculable!” he continued. “Canada has refused to engage in basic Forest Management and Debris Removal, knowing that such refusal will lead to exactly this result.”
“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,” Trump concluded.
He later told reporters after the FIFA World Cup final that he had spoken with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney about the smoke while attending the match in New Jersey.
“I told him, I mean, you got to stop these fires from coming in and, you know, poisoning our air,” he said. “Our air has been poisoned.”
“I have a good relationship with Mark Carney, but, you know, we got to stop the fires up there,” Trump continued. “If we can help them, we’ll help them. But maybe they should pay us some damages or something or we should do some tariffs.”
Carney, 61, laid out his nation’s firefighting plan in a post on X last month, detailing how over 5,300 firefighting personnel had been deployed, and how Canada was using data and advanced thermal imaging for real-time detection and mitigation.
About 5.9 million acres of land have burned in this year’s wildfire season in Canada, according to government data.
