2017 International Forest Industries Magazines June July 2017 | Page 18
LOGGING & BIOMASS NEWS - WORLD MARKETS
Trump’s tariff on Canadian softwood lumber slammed
The Trump administration has fired
the first broadside in its battle
against bilateral trade imbalances.
And its aim was not what most
people expected. Canada, not
China, is the target of the Trump
trade team’s wrath.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur
Ross has just announced a new
20% tariff on imports of Canadian
softwood lumber. The US currently
imports about $5.66 billion worth
of softwood lumber from Canada
every year. It is an essential input
for the American construction and
home repair industries.
This move is ostensibly in
response to a petition from
American lumber producers,
who have long complained that
Canada’s system of “stumpage”
(charges for logging on Canada’s
government-owned lands) amounts
to an unfair subsidy.
The US has never managed
to prove that Canada’s pricing is
unfair: it has lost legal challenges
at the World Trade Organisation
and under NAFTA. But American
lumber producers continue
to complain, and American
governments continue to launch
futile legal action against Canada
in response to their complaints.
Viewed in this light, this move
simply looks like yet another
attempt to pacify American lumber
producers.
But anyone who was
paying attention to Trump’s
pronouncements even before he
was elected would have seen this
coming. Canada was the first of six
countries listed by Peter Navarro
and Wilbur Ross as the primary
“cause” of the USA’s trade deficit.
Consider that roughly half
of our trade