Mexico is America’s largest buyer of lumber, with the North American trading partner replacing China as the United States’ top export market.
That is according to the US Department of Agriculture, which reports that Mexican traders imported more than 469,000 cubic metres of lumber from the United States (23% of the total export market) for the four months to April, with more than 130,000 cubic metres in April alone.
The strong sales to Mexico come as trade in American lumber has slowed in China, down 70,000 cubic metres (or 469,900 cubic metres to 399,300 cubic metres) from the first four months of 2023. Canada, America’s third largest export market, is also closing in on China (378,100 cubic metres, up from 311,300 cubic metres).
The pivot from Asia and towards North America comes as the US, Canada, and Mexico – signatories of USMCA, or NAFTA 2.0, are now participating in a new campaign to stamp out illegal logging, timber trafficking and conflict timber in the world’s largest trading block.
As reported by Wood Central last month, all three countries will participate in the “Advance Responsible Purchasing of Wood Products”, – which will see the US, Canada, and Mexico run joint public awareness campaigns.
The ‘Advance Responsible Purchasing of Wood Products’ project, a joint initiative of the US, Canadian, and Mexican governments, aims to “increase consumer understanding and awareness of wood products”. In addition, “it seeks to empower consumers to support Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) and contribute to the fight against illegal logging through their purchasing power.”
According to the CEC, “Public perception is at the core of the project,” and “the project’s goal is to raise consumer awareness of the importance of SFM and how consumers can contribute to supporting SFM practices.”
Focusing on consumers and their purchasing power, “the public awareness campaigns will seek to empower consumers at various levels of the supply chain who purchase wood products” by “helping them to become actors of the chain by promoting citizen participation in monitoring compliance with environmental legislation and by informing them about the negative impacts of illegal logging.”
When buying lumber, Canada remains the United States’ go-to-market for imports. More than 9.74 million cubic metres of lumber (or 83.4% of total lumber) were traded through the zone for the first four months of 2024 (up from 9.21 million cubic metres (or 79.8%) for the first four months of 2023.
