We’re more than two-thirds of the way through meteorological summer, and so far when the weather hasn’t been suffocatingly hot and humid, in the Midwest and Northeast it’s featured air that’s dangerous for too many of us to breathe.

Sweltering conditions can be a normal part of summer — some years more so than others, of course — but when the winds blow from the north, Americans are supposed to be able to breathe a sigh of relief and head for the tennis courts or the baseball/softball diamonds or the bike trails.

Or, at the very least, their patios and porches.

For the past three years, that temperature relief has been accompanied by plumes of smoke from wildfires raging all summer long in Canada. The end of last week’s heat wave brought daily warnings of poor air quality, with Chicago tabbed last Thursday as having the worst air quality in the entire world.

The warnings continued through most of last weekend and this week.

For many, the conditions made our eyes itchy and were just sort of bothersome. But for those who suffer from asthma and other pulmonary ailments, the air was downright hazardous.

If this situation were a one-off — just a uniquely awful set of circumstances north of the border — we’d be inclined to give Canada a pass. But this is becoming a regular ordeal, and it’s time people who can do something about it acknowledge the issue — and act.

That means Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who took office earlier this year and will have no such excuses next summer. That also means President Donald Trump.

We mention our president because he has spent much of his first six months in office bullying and trolling Canada over trade, national defense and whether that sovereign nation ought to become just another U.S. state. We’ve criticized Trump for treating one of this country’s most stalwart friends on the world stage as an adversary.

Among other things, the natural offense Canadians have taken to Trump’s provocations and threats has led many to boycott travel to the U.S. One look at underwhelming summer traffic at many U.S. tourist destinations suggests this needless antagonism with Canada is costing the U.S. directly.

We’d love to see Trump abandon his self-defeating economic battle with Canada over products such as lumber and focus instead on a Canadian export that truly is damaging America — wildfire smoke. A large swath of the U.S. — essentially the entire Upper Midwest and often the Northeast — is enduring unacceptable health and other risks because of these blazes.

While wildfires are common in Canada given that vast geographic territory’s abundance of unsettled areas, it’s only been in recent years that the conflagrations have grown so large. Unlike the U.S., which long has supported a substantial force to fight wildfires, primarily in the West, Canada’s firefighters are mainly focused on blazes in municipalities. Essentially, Canada has said it doesn’t have the capacity to battle these wildfires before they get so out of control that they must burn themselves out or rage on for months until the seasons change.

The U.S. has sent hundreds of firefighters to help in recent years, but the efforts haven’t been sufficient.

This is not a new summertime status quo to which northern U.S. states simply should be told to get accustomed. It’s unacceptable and should be treated as such.

We’re not saying that solving a problem driven by large-scale climatic changes is simple — or cheap. There’s a reason Canada isn’t equipped like the U.S. to battle fires sparked in wilderness areas. Our neighbor to the north hasn’t needed the capability in the past. It does now.

To be fair, the U.S. has faced its own reckoning with increasingly destructive wildfires, especially in the West. But we’ve built up a robust federal firefighting infrastructure over decades in response — something Canada is only now beginning to consider on a national scale.

What’s needed is for leaders to make this scourge a priority. Where there’s a will there’s a way, especially given the wealth held in North America.

Surely, in coming summers, the U.S. could contribute expertise and even personnel while Canada invests in early detection and extinguishing these fires. In return, Trump could drop his trade-related threats and demands and focus on a U.S.-Canadian problem that directly affects millions of American lives.

How about if both countries committed to action that truly would be beneficial on both sides of the border? A win-win. What a novel concept.

— Chicago Tribune via TNS