At a Thursday cabinet meeting, President Donald Trump suggested that Americans should be using the California deadwood that’s contributed to the state’s massive wildfires instead of paying “a lot money” for Canadian lumber.
As Global News reports, Both Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke argued that “fallen trees” are feeding the California forest fires.
“It’s not a global warming thing. It’s a management situation,” said Trump. “And one of the elements that he talked about was the fact that we have fallen trees, and instead of removing those fallen trees, which get to be extremely combustible — instead of removing them, gently removing them, beautifully removing them — we leave them to burn.”
The president questioned the “ridiculous” situation: “Just to add, just to conclude — especially when Canada is charging us a lot of money to bring their timber down into our country — so ridiculous, here we have it,” said Trump. “We’re not even talking about cutting down trees … we’re talking about lying on the floor creating a hazard and a tremendous death trap.”
By some estimates, U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber have added $9,000 to the cost of an American home.