US President Donald Trump said Canada should be held responsible for smoke from massive wildfires that blanketed parts of US territory. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
According to him, US costs for combating the effects of air pollution could be added to existing tariffs on Canadian goods, Reuters reports.
Thick smoke from hundreds of wildfires in Canada has spread in recent days from the Midwest to the northeastern US. Residents in several states were advised to stay indoors due to hazardous air quality.
Trump said he intends to contact Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and demand an explanation.
"We hold Canada responsible for failing to properly care for its forests. The United States is unnecessarily suffering from dirty, polluted, and harmful air," Trump wrote on social media platform Truth Social.
The US president said the situation has become an "annual occurrence" costing the US billions of dollars. He also called it "willful negligence" and said these costs should be added to existing tariffs on Canadian imports.
Canadian authorities rejected the accusations. Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Community Resilience Eleanor Olszewski said the country has allocated 12 billion Canadian dollars since 2020 for forest conservation and fire prevention. She also noted the long-standing cooperation between Canada and the US in fighting wildfires.
Climatologists link the increase in large wildfires to climate change, saying rising temperatures and prolonged droughts make forests more vulnerable to fires.
The most difficult situation is in the province of Ontario. Since the start of the season, about 2,630 square kilometers of forest have burned there, and thousands of residents have been evacuated. One fire nearly completely destroyed the territory of the indigenous community of Namaygoosisagagun (Collins First Nation). According to rescue operation leader Matthew Hoppe, "almost nothing remains" of the settlement.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that the region will purchase 11 new aircraft to combat rapidly spreading fires.
Meanwhile, the United States itself is also experiencing a severe wildfire situation. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, about 3.7 million acres of land have been destroyed by fire in the country since the beginning of 2026, significantly exceeding the average for the last ten years.
Earlier, Kursiv reported that due to extreme heat in Kazakhstan, 43 wildfires broke out in just one week. The largest one, in the Semey Ormany reserve, was contained the previous day. Its preliminary cause is said to be a lightning strike.