US exports of southern yellow pine (SYP) lumber climbed 47 per cent year on year in March 2026 to 93,500 cubic metres at an average export price of US$289 per cubic metre, with overseas buyers absorbing higher per-cubic-metre costs as monthly volumes recover sharply from the 2025 China trade dispute that hit American softwood exports.
That is according to US customs data obtained by Lesprom Analytics, which confirmed average prices climbed five per cent against February and held two per cent above the $283 March 2025 benchmark, taking total US SYP outflows roughly 50 per cent above the 62,400 cubic metres recorded in May 2025 at the trade dispute’s nadir.
Wood Central understands the March surge reverses the May 2025 trough, when Chinese take-up dropped from 96,900 cubic metres in May 2024 to just 62,400 cubic metres a year later, a 36 per cent collapse that triggered cash-cost curtailments across the US South and prompted Republican House Speakers from Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama to write to Congress demanding targeted tariff relief and the reopening of Asian export channels.
The 93,500 cubic metres shipped in March 2026 brings monthly SYP volumes back within striking distance of pre-dispute peaks, with the five per cent rise on February pointing to overseas buyers competing for product rather than the heavy discounting that characterised the May 2025 trade-flow reset.
Domestically, the same Section 232 tariff regime that has imposed combined countervailing and antidumping duties of 26-48 per cent on Canadian softwood, with most exporters now carrying a 35 per cent rate, has prompted US builders to substitute locally grown SYP for Canadian Douglas fir. The substitution dynamic has tightened the US South’s role in the wider continental supply chain, with SYP sawmills running below cash costs through much of 2025 and softwood lumber imports falling to 20-year lows by early 2026 as duty-laden Canadian product was priced out of US ports.
It comes as Wood Central reported that the US lumber market faces a structural deficit that even a complete halt to softwood exports would not close, with O’Kelly Acumen and Global Wood Trends modelling a seven per cent gap between domestic supply and demand and warning that replacing the 25 million cubic metres of imported lumber the country relies on would require 75 new state-of-the-art softwood sawmills and capital twelve times the cumulative US sawmill investment of the past 15 years.
March US SYP exports have climbed 47 per cent year on year to 93,500 cubic metres, with overseas buyers and US homebuilders absorbing the same US South capacity as Section 232 duties shift US softwood lumber import share from Canada to Sweden and Finland and price Canadian product out of US ports.
