Tropical logs, sawnwood, veneers, and plywood have been carved out of the 25 per cent tariff the United States starts collecting on Brazilian goods from tomorrow, sparing nearly every hardwood line that American buyers cannot source elsewhere. That is according to the final notice published by the Office of the United States Trade Representative, which imposes an extra duty on all Brazilian goods from midnight Eastern Time and sets carve-outs across two annexes.
Directed by a Presidential memorandum signed on 15 July, the action closes the Section 301 probe that President Donald Trump ordered one year earlier to the day, spanning six practices, from digital trade rules and ethanol access to illegal deforestation. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer proposed the 25 per cent rate in June, and more than 360 written filings plus 77 hearing witnesses shaped the final list.
“We remain open to continuing negotiations with Brazil to bring about long-needed changes,” Greer said in a statement confirming the final action, claiming Brazilian practices have shut American producers out of a market of more than 210 million consumers.
Exemptions cut deepest through the tropical trade, with Annex II clearing rough teak and meranti logs alongside sawn mahogany, virola, imbuia, balsa, sapelli, and iroko, plus the veneers, siding, flooring, mouldings, and dowel rods shaped from the same species. Plywood built on tropical outer plies, tropical-faced laminated veneer lumber, and blockboard finish the timber list, which the notice ties to comments that species native to Brazil grow nowhere else and meet fire, durability, and moisture demands that no substitutes match.
Pulp fared almost as well, with unbleached, semi-bleached, and bleached chemical grades, semichemical pulp, and other fibre pulps all exempt, shielding a tissue supply chain that fought the duties from the first weeks of the probe. One grade lost its cover, with high-purity dissolving pulp cut from the proposed list after testimony alleged Brazilian producers gain a land and input cost edge from illegal deforestation.
Wood Central understands that nothing outside the annexes is spared, and the notice records one commenter asking that tariffs stay on wood mouldings and millwork, lines where every exempt shaped-wood entry names tropical species rather than plantation pine. Importers of certain softwood plywood and engineered hardwood flooring argued that the US makes little to no use of either, and the final action adds certain wood products to the list without naming them, leaving the exact tariff line rather than a label such as Brazilian plywood.
Stacking on existing timber duties is ruled out, with wood products already in specified Section 232 headings excluded from the new charge, after commenters across the wood sector warned that doubling the schemes would disrupt supply chains and raise consumer costs for little gain. Those Section 232 rates keep applying on their own terms, as do any antidumping and countervailing duties on covered lines.
Cargo already at sea gets one week of grace, with goods loaded on their final vessel avoiding the duty provided they clear US entry before the same hour on 29 July. Brazilian products moving into US foreign trade zones after the start must enter under privileged foreign status, locking the duty rate at the point of entry.
Brasília is promising retaliation rather than reform, with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva rejecting the measure as unjustified and pledging recourse to the World Trade Organization and Brazil’s Economic Reciprocity Law.
It comes as the exemptions cover the bulk of what Brazil ships, with figures published in June putting five-month wood exports to the United States at 1.22 million tonnes of pulp worth US$507 million and 278,000 cubic metres of plywood worth $81 million. Rerouting is visible at the wharf as well, with timber shipments through Paranaguá to Mexico jumping 33 per cent over the first quarter while exporters worked around duties that reached 50 per cent last August before easing in February.
