U.S. Self-Reliance in Softwood Lumber Hamstrung by Canadian Unfair Trade

The U.S. softwood lumber industry is a critical manufacturing industry essential to the national economic strength and the industrial resilience of the United States

Canada’s unfair trade in softwood lumber continues to be extremely harmful to U.S. producers and workers

Strong trade law enforcement is paramount to bringing about fair pricing of lumber to support future capacity increases for self-reliance in lumber

With its broad system of government subsidies and associated unfair trade practices, Canada is continuously displacing U.S. production and U.S. jobs through its sale of subsidized, below market value softwood lumber to the United States. Canada’s unfair trade practices cause U.S. sawmills to lose sales and revenue, leading to mill curtailments and job cuts in communities across America.

“Canada’s built-for-export excess softwood lumber production capacity is huge and unsustainable, at around 8 billion board feet,” stated Andrew Miller, Chairman/Owner of Stimson Lumber Co. “And Canada’s focus on maintaining its U.S. market share at any cost is hugely detrimental the profitability and growth of the U.S. softwood lumber industry.”

“Demand for housing in the United States remains weak and so does demand for lumber. Yet Canada continues its relentless shipments of dumped and subsidized lumber to further depress demand for U.S. lumber, with devastating consequences for mills, workers, and communities,” added Miller.

U.S. lumber producers have invested billions of dollars and increased capacity by 9 billion board feet since 2016, producing and supplying over 30 billion board feet, cumulatively, of additional lumber into the U.S. supply chain. But the continued flow of unfairly traded Canadian softwood lumber into the U.S. market during a period of weak housing demand is driving down the U.S. softwood lumber industry’s utilization rates and is endangering the advances that the United States has made in recent years towards becoming self-reliant in softwood lumber.

“Anyone arguing against duties on unfairly traded Canadian lumber is in fact seeking to reverse the U.S. industry’s efforts to become self-sufficient in softwood lumber,” stated Zoltan van Heyningen, Executive Director of the U.S. Lumber Coalition. “Strong trade law enforcement is paramount to bringing about fair pricing for lumber to support future capacity increases, but also to keep existing capacity from being further curtailed.”

“We continue to support President Trump prioritizing the strong enforcement of U.S. trade laws against Canada, and we hope that he will take additional steps to accomplish his objective of making the United States fully self-reliant in softwood lumber,” stated van Heyningen, concluding that “we reject the efforts of the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) to fight against President Trump’s goal of U.S. softwood lumber self-reliance and the alignment of the NAHB with Canadian interests in advancing the cause of unfairly traded Canadian lumber imports.”

U.S. lumber community voices on how Canada’s unfair trade practices harm American lumber mills: https://uslumbercoalition.org/video/canadas-unfair-trade-practices-harm-american-lumber-mills/

Enforcing U.S. trade laws helps increase the U.S. supply of lumber to build American homes, all without impacting the cost of a new home, as demonstrated by data from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and Fastmarkets Random Lengths.

About the U.S. Lumber Coalition

The U.S. Lumber Coalition is an alliance of large and small softwood lumber producers from around the country, joined by their employees and woodland owners, working to address Canada’s unfair lumber trade practices. Our goal is to serve as the voice of the American lumber community and effectively address Canada’s unfair softwood lumber trade practices. The Coalition supports the full enforcement of the U.S. trade laws to allow the U.S. industry to invest and grow to its natural size without being impaired by unfairly traded imports. Continued full enforcement of the U.S. trade laws will strengthen domestic supply lines by maximizing long-term domestic production and lumber availability produced by U.S. workers to build U.S. homes. For more information, please visit the Coalition’s website at www.uslumbercoalition.org.

Contact:

Zoltan van Heyningen – zoltan@uslumbercoalition.org – (202) 805-9133

Source: The U.S. Lumber Coalition; American Loggers Council