The U.S. Lumber Coalition in a letter to President Trump highlights the great success of the enforcement of the U.S. trade laws that has added eight billion board feet of production capacity and produced an additional 30 billion board feet of softwood lumber since 2016. These increases alone are enough to build two million single family homes and has more than offset the decline in unfairly traded Canadian lumber imports.
"Trade law enforcement against unfairly traded Canadian lumber imports has been a resounding success for American workers, companies, and forestry dependent communities, and has strengthened a stable supply chain of made-in-the-U.S.A. lumber to build American homes," stated Andrew Miller, Chairman/Owner of Stimson Lumber and Chair of the U.S. Lumber Coalition.
"Unfortunately, even with the enforcement of the U.S. trade laws, Canada continues to engage in massive dumping of their excess lumber production into the U.S. market in an attempt to desperately hold on to their market share at the expense of American workers and their families," stated Zoltan van Heyningen, Executive Director of the U.S. Lumber Coalition, adding that "we anticipate that the U.S. Department of Commerce will soon confirm this egregious dumping behavior by Canadian lumber producers that threatens to disrupt the advances that U.S. producers have made in increasing the domestic supply of lumber."
The letter to President Trump concludes that continued strong enforcement of the U.S. trade laws which level the playing field against unfairly traded Canadian lumber imports is exactly what must happen to keep expanding U.S. lumber manufacturing and availability to build more American homes with American lumber.
"If Canada and their Canada First allies in the United States do not like duties being imposed against Canadian lumber imports, then all Canadian lumber producers need to do is to stop engaging in harmful dumping practices into the U.S. market and eliminate the long-standing practice of subsidizing the Canadian lumber industry," concluded van Heyningen, adding that "until this happens, the U.S. lumber industry will continue to fight for the full enforcement of the U.S. trade laws against unfairly traded Canadian lumber."
Enforcing the U.S. trade laws helps increase the U.S. supply of lumber to build American homes, all without impacting the cost of a new home, as demonstrated by the graph below using data from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and Fastmarkets Random Lengths.
About the U.S. Lumber Coalition
The U.S. Lumber Coalition is an alliance of large and small softwood lumber producers from around the country, joined by their employees and woodland owners, working to address Canada's unfair lumber trade practices.