U.S. Lumber Coalition Rejects Canadian Demands to Ease Trade Tariffs

Canadian officials have directed over $3 billion in subsidies toward their lumber sector over the past year, a move intended to offset U.S. antidumping duties and Section 232 tariffs. The U.S. Lumber Coalition views these payments as a distortion of fair competition, maintaining that the current tariffs are the primary driver behind a significant expansion of American production capacity. Since 2016, domestic producers have added more than 8 billion board feet of output capacity, while Canadian market share in the U.S. has slipped from over 30 percent to below 19 percent.

Zoltan van Heyningen, Executive Director of the Coalition, insisted that Canada should prioritize reducing its excess production rather than lobbying for policy rollbacks. Industry executives point to a wave of capital investments across the country as proof that the trade enforcement strategy is succeeding. Projects ranging from a $260 million sawmill in Mississippi to major facility expansions in Maine, Louisiana, and Florida underscore a trend of localized growth. According to Steve Swanson, Chair of the Coalition, the industry has successfully used this period of trade certainty to ramp up operations, even amidst a broader environment of weak housing demand. With U.S. mills now supplying nearly 75 percent of the domestic market, the Coalition is urging the administration to maintain its current trade agenda.