{"id":133310,"date":"2026-07-17T15:51:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/133310\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T15:51:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T15:51:06","slug":"bernie-moreno-calls-for-sanctions-on-canada-over-wildfire-smoke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/133310\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernie Moreno calls for sanctions on Canada over wildfire smoke"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sen. Bernie Moreno<\/a> (R-OH) is taking action to impose U.S. sanctions on Canada<\/a> in light of the wildfire<\/a> smoke that has enveloped the Midwest and East Coast this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be introducing a bill next week to sanction Canada and the responsible Canadian government officials for this atrocity,\u201d Moreno posted on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a press release<\/a>, his office explained Canadian officials \u201cfailed to invest in wildfire prevention methods including forest thinning, fuel reduction, prescribed burns, and stronger enforcement against arson.\u201d As a result, wildfires have broken out and sent smoke downward to several U.S. states, including Ohio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The smoke has primarily descended upon the Great Lakes region and the Northeast, with major metropolitan cities experiencing unhealthy air pollution levels. The air quality index numbers in New York City and Washington, D.C.<\/a>, for instance, are 134 and 212, respectively, as of Friday morning. The figures are steadily declining as the day progresses, though.<\/p>\n

An early version<\/a> of Moreno\u2019s bill, dubbed the CANADA FIRE Act, seeks to declare a national emergency over the wildfire smoke and sanction any Canadian officials responsible for failing to address the issue. The legislation also includes visa restrictions for the sanctioned individuals.<\/p>\n

The text says Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> should declare multiple Canadian officials \u201cpersona non grata\u201d until President Donald Trump<\/a> certifies that the AQI in affected U.S. communities remains below 100 for 90 consecutive days following the end of the wildfire smoke. Under international law, persona non grata means any foreign official is unwelcome in the host country. In this case, the United States would temporarily strip Canadian leaders of their diplomatic immunity until the issue is resolved.<\/p>\n

The senator\u2019s announcement of the bill came in response to a Cleveland reporter, who posted a photo<\/a> of the city\u2019s hazy sky on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to downplay the seriousness of the wildfire smoke, but I will to sound very Cleveland,\u201d Signal Cleveland editor-at-large Mark Naymik wrote. \u201cA slightly more cynical colleague remarked, \u2018This is what Cleveland looked like every day in 1977. And smelled worse.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreno is not the only lawmaker wishing to hold Canada accountable for the wildfire smoke. His call for sanctions came after four Michigan Republicans in the House penned a scathing letter<\/a> to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the third consecutive year we have had to write to Canadian officials about a crisis that Canada has the tools to prevent and has chosen not to,\u201d the letter states. It was signed by Reps. John James, Jack Bergman, John Moolenaar, and Lisa McClain.<\/p>\n

DC AIR QUALITY REACHES SEVERELY POLLUTED LEVELS AS CANADIAN WILDFIRE SMOKE ROLLS IN<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are done accepting apologies in place of action,\u201d they wrote. \u201cIf Canada will not manage its forests to prevent these fires, the United States will look elsewhere, and act on our own, to protect our people. That means our own agencies exploring direct involvement in cross border fuel reduction and firefighting capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without directly addressing the letter, Carney said both Canada and the U.S. have a responsibility to fight climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) is taking action to impose U.S. sanctions on Canada in light of the wildfire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22021,43854,17,8083,1802,1109,19196,2758],"class_list":["post-133310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-air-pollution","tag-bernie-moreno","tag-canada","tag-congress","tag-legislation","tag-ohio","tag-sanctions","tag-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}