Imported hardwood timber and lumber could be the next wood products to face a US national security tariff, with the Commerce Department’s one-year deadline to report back to the White House on those imports running out at the end of today in Washington. That is according to the proclamation President Donald Trump signed a year ago this week, which requested the update so he could decide whether the phased import duty that Commerce recommended in July last year is warranted.
“By October 1, 2026, the Secretary shall provide the President with an update on imports of hardwood timber and lumber, their markets, and the domestic industry,” the proclamation instructs, naming the phased duty from Commerce’s report and further duties on hardwood derivatives as the choices before the President. Commerce reports to the President rather than to the public under that clause, and the White House had published no hardwood decision as of this morning.
It comes as the 10 per cent tariff on softwood timber and lumber heads into its second year, having taken effect last October alongside 25 per cent on upholstered wooden furniture, kitchen cabinets, and vanities, with hardwood left out. Trump put off the planned increases to 30 and 50 per cent by a year at the end of last year, with the amended proclamation citing “productive negotiations of agreements with multiple countries” on wood products.
Beijing listed American hardwood lumber for lower tariffs four days before the deadline, whilst 32 members of Congress had asked US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in June to write lumber, not logs, into the China deal. Glenn Thompson, chair of the House agriculture committee, said in August that American hardwood lumber output has fallen 48.3 per cent since 2018, with Chinese trade worth US$1.5 billion a year in 2018 now down to $701 million.
“Dumped and subsidised hardwood plywood from overseas is wiping out our industry,” Jeremy Manthei, chief executive of Manthei Wood Products, said last year in a Decorative Hardwoods Association release asking for hardwood plywood, hardwood veneer, and engineered wood flooring to join the tariffs. The clause allows Trump to impose duties on hardwood derivatives as well as on timber and lumber, and the association wrote to him the day after he signed the proclamation.
