Days after lumber prices hit 30-month highs, Donald Trump has doubled down on his plans to impose tariffs on Canadian softwood despite signing a new round of executive orders delaying the 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican products for another month. On delaying tariffs, Trump said, “The big ones will start happening from April 2,” including “a tremendous tariff on lumber and things like that.”
“We don’t need their lumber. We have more lumber than they do. We don’t need Canada’s lumber. So what I’m doing is I’ll be signing an executive order freeing up our forests so that we’re allowed to take down trees and make a lot of money and then re-harvest trees,” the US President said – with reference to his executive order last week to “free up the forests.”
“We don’t need trees from Canada. We don’t need cars from Canada. We don’t need energy from Canada. We don’t need anything from Canada… We can be self-sustaining, which is in most things… I will be freeing that up very shortly so that we don’t have to go to other countries to buy lumber. You know, why should we be buying lumber from other countries? Paying tariffs, paying big prices, extraordinary prices. And we have lumber. We have the best lumber,” he said.
Yesterday, Trump announced he was pausing tariff hikes on imports from Mexico after a phone call with President Claudia Sheinbaum, whilst on Wednesday, he ordered a pause on the hikes applying to automobiles: “After speaking with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, I have agreed that Mexico will not be required to pay tariffs on anything that falls under the USMCA Agreement.”
“This Agreement is until April 2,” he said. “I did this as an accommodation and out of respect for President Sheinbaum. Our relationship has been a very good one, and we are working hard together on the border, both in terms of stopping illegal aliens from entering the United States and, likewise, stopping fentanyl. Thank you to President Sheinbaum for your hard work and cooperation!”
The changes came just days after the US levied a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico for their failure or refusal to stop the flow of illegal migrants and fentanyl in the US and 20% in two separate announcements on goods from China for not stopping fentanyl at the country of origin.
Earlier, Trump took to TruthSocial and claimed that Trudeau was using tariffs as a platform to run again as Prime Minister. “Believe it or not, despite the terrible job he’s done for Canada, I think that Justin Trudeau is using the Tariff problem, which he has largely caused, in order to run again for Prime Minister. So much fun to watch.” Already, Trump has threatened to hit global partners with tariffs, using a system in which the US will levy tariffs on imports from trading partner countries that match the rates imposed by them on American goods—a system that could see Trump target Indian products.
- To learn more about the impact of Trump’s tariff plans on the global timber supply chain, click here for Wood Central’s special feature.
