President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to impose tariffs on Canada in retaliation for wildfire smoke, but it was not clear that he has the legal authority to impose such a levy.
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The White House did not respond to questions about what legal mechanism he would use to impose the tariffs or how the administration would calculate the rate of the levies. Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that the cost of the pollution was “incalculable.”
“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!” he wrote.
Trump added that he planned to call Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to discuss the fires, amid economic tensions between the United States and its northern neighbor.
Canada and China were the only two countries that implemented retaliatory tariffs in response to Trump’s “Liberation Day” levies last year, and formal negotiations between the United States and Canada have not started over the future of a crucial North American trade pact.
Trump has a history of threatening tariffs in response to grievances and not following through. Last year, he repeatedly threatened a 100 percent tariff on foreign films; it never materialized.
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He asserted that imported films posed “a National Security threat” of “messaging and propaganda.”
The Supreme Court this year also significantly constrained Trump’s ability to implement tariffs when it ruled that he could not use emergency powers to enact levies.
This stripped the president of a key instrument he had used to try to coerce foreign leaders and reshape world order in his second term.
Following the court’s ruling, Trump implemented a global 10 percent tariff under a different trade law, but that levy is scheduled to expire next week.
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