Trump can't see the forest for the trees

Winnipeg Free Press

11 hours ago

Opinion
Drill, baby drill — and it would seem, cut, baby, cut.
In addition to his ongoing tariff war, a successful budget bill that seeks to strip Medicaid and food benefits from millions, and an 'anti-immigrant' crackdown which has seen legal-status American residents arrested and imprisoned abroad with little or no recourse, U.S. President Donald Trump has also had just about enough of all the trees cluttering up his country.
Trump's administration is on track to strip federal protections from 59 million acres of national forest, opening it up to logging.
The Associated Press
U.S. President Donald Trump
This is, one supposes, part of his master plan to wean his country off of Canadian lumber, which he has stated in the past the U.S. does not need.
According to The Guardian, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the move at a meeting of the Western Governors' Association in Santa Fe, N.M. During that meeting, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum described Trump's plans to use more homegrown resources for manufacturing purposes. The meeting follows an executive order issued in March.
The environmental implications of this are obvious.
In a time where the backlash of our changing climate is affecting people across the world, cutting down more carbon-capturing trees in the name of manufacturing and profit is a backward move, plain and simple. Trump's administration has made gestures toward there being some environmental benefit to more logging — claiming that, since the restrictions prevent any roads from being built through millions of acres of forest, it is more difficult to combat wildfires.
But this argument must contend with the reality that, according to the U.S. National Park Service, nearly 85 per cent of wildfires in the U.S. are caused by humans — who must be accessing those forests from a nearby road.
It comes as no surprise that the Trump administration's rationale is faulty. Trump and his cabinet make these kind of arguments because they must, not because they believe in them.
The real reason Trump is gung-ho to cut down millions of acres of forest is as simple as it is petty: he doesn't want to have to pay the sticker price on another country's lumber, and he's willing to jeopardize the long-term ecological health of his own country out of spite.
The consequences will not be limited to fewer trees and hotter temperatures. According to Earth.org, environmental groups in the U.S., such as the Sierra Club and Earthjustice, point out that logging activities pose a risk to drinking water supplies, and destroy the habitats for wildlife across the United States.
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And this is far from the only environmentally unfriendly action he has taken — as of May, Trump had taken more than 140 actions to strip away rules protecting air and water quality.
Depending on what part of the world you live in, American hostility and belligerence toward others might be nothing new.
But it's difficult to conceive of any other point where an American president, by his actions, seemed so plainly hostile to both the international community and his own citizens. Between his militaristic posturing in Iran, his treatment of millions of poor and marginalized Americans or legal immigrants, and his disdain for environmental concerns, he is a unique problem for the global community. It does not seem unfair to say he is hostile to the long-term well-being of the human race in general.
However much trade relationships might seem important to America's international partners and allies — yes, including Canada — it is time to speak up about the many, many reckless and galling move this administration is making.
And it's time to play hardball to force a change of course in the U.S., to limit the scope of the damage Trump intends to do.