This story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

President Donald Trump is displeased and waging economic war with Canada yet again, this time because…our northern neighbor isn’t doing enough to fight the effects of climate change?

“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!” the chief executive wrote in a Friday Truth Social post, referring to the intense clouds of wildfire smog of Ontario origin that are choking states and currently wafting as far as Seattle and Pittsburgh. “Canada has refused to engage in basic Forest Management and Debris Removal…costing the United States Billions of Dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying.” (On Monday, Trump rolled out new 50 percent tariffs on a wide array of Canadian goods, including alcohol and hockey sticks, but an official told CNBC that these are separate from his plans to hike trade taxes in response to the wildfires.)

The president also revealed to the media that he had confronted Prime Minister Mark Carney during Sunday’s FIFA World Cup finals in New Jersey. “I told him, you know, you got to stop these fires from coming in and poisoning our air,” said Trump. “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.” After some more rambling, the Donald hit on something of an inconvenient truth. “I never remembered this happening,” he added. “Over the last four or five years you saw it starting to take place. I never remembered it happening before.”

It’s almost like the climate is changing!

If you didn’t know better, you might have thought Trump was taking Carney to task for failing to stem the greenhouse........

© Mother Jones