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Why the Wall Street Journal is Wrong on the Lumber Dispute

"President Trump is absolutely right that we do not need unfairly traded and dumped Canadian lumber imports to supply our market," according to an alliance of large and small softwood lumber producers, from around the United States.


Wed 29 Jan 25

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The US Lumber Coalition has slammed the Wall Street Journal, which, over the weekend, reported on the long-running softwood dispute and its impact on disaster recovery. “We were disappointed reading the tired old Canada First talking points on the issue of unfairly traded Canadian lumber imports and US housing,” according to Andrew Miller, Chairman of the US Lumber Coalition and President and CEO of Stimson Lumber.

“President Trump is absolutely right that we do not need unfairly traded and dumped Canadian lumber imports to supply our market,” Miller said in a media statement. “Canada overproduces softwood lumber for the sole purpose of maintaining employment in Canada, and they unload their oversupply of lumber into the US market at the expense of American jobs, companies and their communities.”

“The US does not need to import a third of the softwood used in home construction, as the Wall Street Journal states, and Canada’s share of the US market is at its lowest level in decades,” Miller said. “Since 2016, US mills have added eight billion board feet of production capacity and produced 30 billion additional board feet of softwood lumber, more than offsetting the decline in unfairly traded Canadian imports.”

According to the coalition, strengthening domestic supply lines to build American homes with American lumber would not have happened without vigorous enforcement of US trade laws, which work to level the playing field against subsidized and dumped imports: “The Wall Street Journal does not appear to understand the process of the US trade laws, stating that President Trump “slapped tariffs on Canadian lumber, which Mr. Biden continued,” the coalition said, with the process of administering and enforcing laws rigorous and transparent.

“Canada has a strong voice in the WTO-sanctioned legal process that determines the level of antidumping and countervailing import duties – over 120 lawyers are working for Canadian interests on this matter in Washington DC. In fact, Canada maintains and enforces similar trade laws to protect its own industries from unfair foreign trade practices.”

Canada also has a direct choice in the outcome – it can choose to trade fairly.

“If Canada and Canadian companies do not like antidumping and countervailing duties, then all they need to do is stop subsidizing their industry and stop dumping their product into the US market at the expense of American companies and workers. It is as simple as that,” Miller said.

And regarding lumber and the cost of new housing, the coalition said the Wall Street Journal would do well to look more closely at the numbers before claiming that lumber has contributed to higher building costs: “The Journal states lumber prices are up about 35% from five years ago. This is incorrect. According to the industry publication Random Lengths, softwood lumber prices in December 2024 were 11% higher than in December 2019 (five years ago). Other commodities have seen much larger price increases, including building materials such as iron, steel, cement, and concrete. In short, it is not credible to blame softwood lumber for recent increases in US house prices.”

“The cost of lumber only makes up about 1.3% of the total cost of an average new construction home, and even less in higher priced homes,” stated Zoltan van Heyningen, US Lumber Coalition Executive Director, “so the idea that longstanding antidumping or countervailing duties or President Trump’s proposed tariffs on unfairly traded Canadian lumber imports would cause lumber prices to dramatically increase home prices is nonsensical.”

“Simply put, the cost of lumber doesn’t move the needle when it comes to the price of a new home. Lumber prices saw all-time highs during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21. Lumber prices today are a third of those high, but new home prices have continued to climb,” van Heyningen added.

From 2019 to the first three quarters of 2024, the median new house price increased by 32%, the hourly earnings of US construction workers increased by 24%, and the profits of the five largest US homebuilders increased by 49%.  Softwood lumber prices increased by only 8.8% over this period.

“We urge the Wall Street Journal to truly study and understand a subject matter before writing and publishing an Editorial Board Opinion. This American industry of hard-working men and women who provide a stable supply of American-made lumber to build America’s homes deserves better from such publications. Merely repeating talking points from Canadian officials and pro-Canada interest groups is not sufficient to publish a credible opinion piece,” Miller concluded.

Expect Price Hikes — Will the USA Ramp Up Duties on Canadian Lumber?

Earlier this month, Wood Central revealed that duties on more than $3 billion of US-bound Canadian lumber could soon double, from 14.4% to more than 30%, with analysts expecting the US Department of Commerce to slap a new round of duties on softwood in response to a sharp drop in the price of Canadian lumber—down 70% from its 2021 peak. And that is in addition to Donald Trump’s threat to slap a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods—which, in effect, could see the administration drive up the price of lumber used to build much-needed housing and infrastructure projects.

That is according to the Canadian-based Globe and Mail, which said the prediction, which could come into effect in November 2025, is “based on a historical pattern of higher duties whenever there are low prices in the lumber markets.” As it stands, the accumulated duties paid by Canadian producers in the softwood dispute is more than US $7 billion (since 2017), including interest on payments held in trust by the US government.

According to Kurt Niquidet, president of the BC Lumber Trade Council, the post-2017 escalation in the 40-year softwood dispute, sparked by US buyers substituting local Southern Yellow Pine (SYP) for Canadian Spruce-Pine-Fir (SPF), has seen Canada’s share of market fall from 33% in 2016 to just 24% this year.

In the US Department of Commerce’s latest rate revision – back in September – the combined countervailing and anti-dumping duties totalled 14.4% for most softwood from Canada, down from 14.54% in August but up sharply compared with 8.05% in early 2024.

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  • Wood Central

    Wood Central is Australia’s first and only dedicated platform covering wood-based media across all digital platforms. Our vision is to develop an integrated platform for media, events, education, and products that connect, inform, and inspire the people and organisations who work in and promote forestry, timber, and fibre.

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