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Trump threatens Canada with tariffs over wildfire smoke · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: President Donald Trump is threatening to raise tariffs on Canada
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  Speaker 1: over what he calls an unnecessary invasion of smoke from
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: wildfires drifting across the border into the United States. There
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  Speaker 1: are currently nearly nine hundred switch blazes across Canada, most
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  Speaker 1: of them burning out of control.
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  Speaker 2: Heavy smoke brought on by hundreds of Canadian wildfires is
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  Speaker 2: enveloping many American cities, including the capital Washington, DC, obscuring
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  Speaker 2: major landmarks and affecting the air quality for locals and tourists.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really hard to see.
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  Speaker 4: I was walking up here from the African American Museum,
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  Speaker 4: and I was a little nervous about my lungs and
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  Speaker 4: breathing it in. I do have it aswa, so I
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  Speaker 4: feel like it's going to end up getting to me
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  Speaker 4: a little bit.
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  Speaker 3: After walking all around DC and everything.
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  Speaker 5: You could see the smog and you could actually smell
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  Speaker 5: the smoke. I on really like the smog, just because
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  Speaker 5: it's so smoky.
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  Speaker 3: I don't like it.
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  Speaker 2: In a social media post on Friday, Donald Trump said
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  Speaker 2: the US was being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and
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  Speaker 2: unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous and totally unacceptable.
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  Speaker 2: He went on to say this wilful negligence must be
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  Speaker 2: added to the tariffs Canada is currently paying. The wildfires
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  Speaker 2: have put communities across Canada on high alert. The epicenter
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  Speaker 2: is northern Ontario, where nearly two hundred active blazes have
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  Speaker 2: forced evacuations across many parts of the province. The Premier
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  Speaker 2: of Ontario had this reaction to comments by American politicians
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  Speaker 2: blaming Canada for the smoke.
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  Speaker 5: I truly believe the Americans are good neighbors. If there's
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  Speaker 5: some politicians out there tripping away, well maybe what you
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  Speaker 5: should do rather than complain is send support, send help,
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  Speaker 5: because we have done the exact same thing for our
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  Speaker 5: American friends, and that's what you're supposed to do.
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  Speaker 2: Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney did not address the accusations directly. Instead,
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  Speaker 2: he suggested the US do more to combat climate change,
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  Speaker 2: which scientists say is a driving factor of the increase
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  Speaker 2: in frequency and severity of wildfires. Carney and Trump will
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  Speaker 2: likely run into each other on Sunday at the World
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  Speaker 2: Cup final in New York City, which is also being
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  Speaker 2: hit hard by hayes and poor air quality as a
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  Speaker 2: result of the wildfires in Canada.
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  Speaker 1: Well a short while ago, I spoke to Matthew Capucci.
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  Speaker 1: He's a senior meteorologist at Weather Forecasting Service my radar.
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  Speaker 1: He was in Arlington, Virginia, just across from Washington, d C.
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  Speaker 1: And explained to me how the smoke can travel such
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  Speaker 1: vast distances.
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  Speaker 3: For starters, you just have a ton of smoke.
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  Speaker 4: These are incredibly tall boreal fires up in northwest Ontario,
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  Speaker 4: using a ton of material into the atmosphere, and it's
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  Speaker 4: surfing the jet stream east. This river winds and the
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  Speaker 4: upper atmosphere all the way to the eastern seaboard. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 4: that weather pattern looks to continue for quite a while.
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  Speaker 3: Now. The weird thing you step.
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  Speaker 4: Outside here in the nation's capital, I can hardly see
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  Speaker 4: the Washington Monument, which is only.
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  Speaker 3: About one point five kilometers away.
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  Speaker 4: Ordinarily you can see up to about fifteen kilometers from here,
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  Speaker 4: so we have visibilities like ten percent of what we
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  Speaker 4: should have. Interestingly, this smoke doesn't really smell like smoke.
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  Speaker 3: It's not like a campfire. It smells almost plastic key.
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  Speaker 4: And the reason for that is it takes one or
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  Speaker 4: two days for the smoke to get here. The heavier
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  Speaker 4: aerosols that smell more smoke. You settle out, leaving behind
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  Speaker 4: things like volatile organic compounds that interact with sunlight to
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  Speaker 4: produce from aldehyde.
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  Speaker 3: So this smoke isn't just inconvenient and a nuisance.
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  Speaker 4: It actually increases your risk of heart attack, increases respiratory issues,
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  Speaker 4: your eyes might start to sting. This is the second
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  Speaker 4: time in three years it's been this bad. Right now,
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  Speaker 4: we have a code purple. It rivals the pollution in
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  Speaker 4: a place like Deli or even worse right now than Beijing.
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  Speaker 3: And this is all due to smoke.
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  Speaker 1: It sounds pretty brutal, to say the least. Matthew. Now,
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  Speaker 1: many viewers will remember the smoke that blanketed North American
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  Speaker 1: cities back in twenty twenty three.
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  Speaker 3: I was there.
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  Speaker 1: I remembered it was It was pretty awful. And we're
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  Speaker 1: seeing similar scenes again. Now, is this becoming a regular
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  Speaker 1: occurrence because of climate change? Essentially?
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  Speaker 3: Well, fires are always going to happen.
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  Speaker 4: In the case of twenty twenty three, interestingly, there's a
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  Speaker 4: record heat dome. We're rich of high pressure that brought
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  Speaker 4: put sinking air, drying out the landscape in Canada, and
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  Speaker 4: then they got thunderstorms Parsley thanks to that heat and
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  Speaker 4: those thunderstorms were what sparked the lightning.
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  Speaker 3: That made the fires.
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  Speaker 4: So in a roundabout way, it was catalyzed actually by
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  Speaker 4: climate change and the fact that it's warmer and in
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  Speaker 4: many cases drier means you're much more likely to see
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  Speaker 4: bigger areas burned. So climate change was actually increased risk
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  Speaker 4: of extreme fire behavior and that can lead to higher
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  Speaker 4: end over achieving events like this. And you can see
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  Speaker 4: that satellite imagery right, I mean, my goodness, all that
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  Speaker 4: smoke is just caught up in the jet stream pouring
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  Speaker 4: southeast no wonder, it's blanketing the eastern seaboard, and you're
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  Speaker 4: an incredibly thick, toxic shroud of fine particulates.
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  Speaker 1: Now, I mean you've mentioned that now a few times,
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  Speaker 1: that it's essentially this air is toxic and for people
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  Speaker 1: looking out their windows and seeing these hazy skies or
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  Speaker 1: these smoky skies. You've mentioned the health risks, but can
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  Speaker 1: you just sort of tell us really how serious they
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  Speaker 1: are and who should be most concerned on what precautions
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  Speaker 1: they should be taking.
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  Speaker 3: That's a great point.
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  Speaker 4: You know, I hate to say it, but it's almost
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  Speaker 4: like the COVID days, and that you want to break
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  Speaker 4: out the N ninety five mask, anything to filter.
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  Speaker 3: Out those fine particulates.
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  Speaker 4: And just to give you all some idea, these particulates
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  Speaker 4: about two point five mic bronzic cross in other words,
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  Speaker 4: one thirtieth the diameter of a human hair. And that's
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  Speaker 4: what If you breathe those into your lungs and concentrations
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  Speaker 4: like we.
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  Speaker 3: Have right now, that's bad for anyone, not.
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  Speaker 4: Just the elderly, not just the vulnerable, not just those
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  Speaker 4: with respiratory issues. It's bad for everybody. And so I'd
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  Speaker 4: say minimize outdoor exposure. Skip the jogi, the afternoon walk,
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  Speaker 4: stay indoors.
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  Speaker 3: If at all possible, And for folks with.
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  Speaker 4: Air conditioning units, set their hvact to only recirculate indoor air.
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  Speaker 4: Don't bring an air from the outdoors until this clears
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  Speaker 4: sometime in the next twenty four to thirty six hours.
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  Speaker 1: Tell Us you've mentioned there before a little bit about
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  Speaker 1: the weather conditions.
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  Speaker 3: What is it that sort of what combination.
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  Speaker 1: Of conditions do you have to have for this situation
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  Speaker 1: to arise.
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  Speaker 4: Well, unfortunately, east of the Hudson Bay we have a
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  Speaker 4: counterclockwise spinning low over like northern Quebec, northern Ontario, and
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  Speaker 4: that's just kind of pin wheeling all this smoke south
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  Speaker 4: and east. And unfortunately that weather pattern doesn't look to
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  Speaker 4: budge for the next week to ten days, perhaps until
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  Speaker 4: the calendar flips to August. We do have some coal
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  Speaker 4: fronts that'll come through and periodically make the air a
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  Speaker 4: little bit better.
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  Speaker 3: But here's the crazy part.
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  Speaker 4: Later on this afternoon, we're expecting scattered showers and thunderstorms
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  Speaker 4: up and down the East coast. Those thunderstorms are also
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  Speaker 4: forming in a smoky layer, so there's a chance that
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  Speaker 4: we scavenge the smoke out of the air and produce
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  Speaker 4: dirty rain drops literally ashy, sooty rain drops that make
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  Speaker 4: your cars and the ground dirty as a result.
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  Speaker 1: That's pretty You're painting a pretty scary picture there at Matthew,
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  Speaker 1: to say the least. Now, the story has also sparked
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  Speaker 1: a political route between Washington and Ottawa. But from a
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  Speaker 1: meteorological perspective, what does it tell us about the fact
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  Speaker 1: that climate and environmental disasters just don't respect national borders.
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  Speaker 3: You're one hundred percent correct.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I know there are some politicians who want
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  Speaker 4: to sue Canada for the fires, but by that logic,
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  Speaker 4: should Canada be able to sue us every time it's hot,
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  Speaker 4: humid because the air is coming from US.
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  Speaker 3: I mean it. Forest management is something that is very important.
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  Speaker 4: At the same time, it's unrealistic to expect that type
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  Speaker 4: of management of boreal uninhabited forests. But it goes to
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  Speaker 4: show you that anytime you have a disaster like this
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  Speaker 4: that can expect a large portion of continent, the response
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  Speaker 4: has to be from multiple different agencies, multiple different countries.
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  Speaker 4: No country exists in a vacuum, and the weather certainly,
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  Speaker 4: as you said, does not respect borders.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Matthew, we leave it there, but really great
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  Speaker 1: to get that update and also that explanation of what
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  Speaker 1: is happening. Matthew Capouchi, a senior meteorologist at Weather Forecasting
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  Speaker 1: Service MIGHT Radar, joining us today from Arlington, Virginia. Take care,
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  Speaker 1: Thanks Matthew, Thank you,