{"id":21824,"date":"2024-11-05T12:17:11","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T02:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/?p=21824"},"modified":"2024-11-05T12:17:13","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T02:17:13","slug":"tariffs-hit-hard-americas-south-breaks-canadas-grip-on-timber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/tariffs-hit-hard-americas-south-breaks-canadas-grip-on-timber\/","title":{"rendered":"Tariffs Hit Hard: America’s South Breaks Canada’s Grip on Timber"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the first time since 1970, the American South will surpass Canada and become the dominant producer of North American lumber. It comes as decades of Canadian dominance have come to a halt with trade restrictions, wildfires, insect infestation, and land-use regulations have started to bite hard into a British Columbian economy that until recently has relied on lumber for 25% of its exported commodities.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is according to Fastmarkets, which revealed that the latest round of softwood lumber duties has battered Canadian producers – raised 81% in August and could jump again according to new data obtained by the United States Commerce Department’s annual review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest round of data comes after Wood Central reported on Republican candidate Donald Trump’s plans to stimulate manufacturing by imposing a 10% baseline tariff and a 60% tariff on Chinese goods.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four-decade-long softwood lumber dispute is one of the world’s most protracted and enduring trade disputes. The United States accuses Canada’s CA $10 billion (or US $7.2 billion) industry of dumping low-priced timber into the country, arguing that the government fees that Canadian loggers pay to harvest timber amount to a subsidy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further levies could be “quite devastating for the sector,” according to Kurt Niquidet, chief economist for the BC Council of Forest Industries, who spoke to Bloomberg overnight<\/a>. “You would see widespread curtailments throughout not just BC, but across Canada.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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