Right after the withering heat wave lifted from Iowa, a blanket of smokey haze settled like fog into low lying areas and hung in the air, making it harder to breathe for some people. This, of course, was caused by the raging Canadian forest fires that have so far consumed more than 13.8 million acres of trees in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. This is particularly alarming to the US because we import 80 percent of our lumber from Canada and our building industry desperately needs more lumber to meet our growing demands for new housing. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has just imposed a crushing 35 percent tariff on imports from Canada because he feels Canada is cheating us by not buying more US goods. Which brings us to the Turkish folktale of “The Smell of Soup and the Sound of Money.”

This ancient tale features the legendary trickster Nasreddin Hodja who was reputedly born in 1208 near Sivrihisasr, Turkey. As the story goes, a beggar was given a crust of bread. But it was dry and tasteless and, hoping to make his meal more palatable, he asked an innkeeper to spare him some additional morsel. But the innkeeper refused and threw him out. Undeterred, the beggar sneaked back and discovered a large pot of soup boiling over the fire. Seeing an opportunity to soften his crust of bread and perhaps add a bit of flavor, he steamed it over the bubbling soup. But when the innkeeper saw this, he was irate and grabbed the beggar’s arm, dragging him off to the authorities for stealing. “I took no soup,” the beggar protested to the innkeeper. “I was only smelling the vapor.”

Now, it seems that the qadi, or judge serving at the time was none other than the trickster, Nasreddin Hodja, who listened thoughtfully to the innkeeper’s complaint. “So, you demand payment for the smell of your soup?” Hodja asked the innkeeper.

“That’s right,” replied the innkeeper, eager for revenge.

Hodja scratched his beard and nodded. “Then I will pay you myself.” And with that, he withdrew a handful of gold coins from his pocket. The innkeeper’s eyes grew wide with greed and anticipation. Hodja let the coins fall on the table with a ringing sound that was music to the innkeeper’s ears. “And I will pay you for the smell of your soup,” continued Hodja, “with the sound of my money.” And with that, he scooped the coins back into his pocket. “Case closed!”

Donald Trump, like the greedy innkeeper, demands to be recompensed through his tariffs on Canada which are essentially nothing, like vapor. What might Nasreddin Hodja say to Trump the “innkeeper”? I think he might tell him, “Mr. Trump, because of this imaginary tariff you created, you feel Canada owes you more lumber? And yet everywhere you look, you see the smoke from 13.8 million acres of prime Canadian forests. It seems you have fair compensation for your invoice of thin air with the smell of Canadian wood smoke. Case closed.”