The U.S. Department of Commerce plans to raise tariffs levied against Canadian softwood lumber producers, marking the latest salvo in the long-running trade dispute.
Based on the Commerce Department’s preliminary assessment, the combined countervailing and anti-dumping duty rates will be 13.86 per cent for most Canadian producers, compared with 8.05 per cent currently.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The U.S. Department of Commerce plans to raise tariffs levied against Canadian softwood lumber producers, marking the latest salvo in the long-running trade dispute.
The Commerce Department will make further adjustments by August to set final rates in its fifth administrative review, which is based on lumber markets in 2022.
The U.S. lumber lobby has long argued that Canadian producers receive unfair provincial softwood subsidies and dump product south of the border at below market value.
The U.S. says the measures are necessary to protect its lumber industry, because Canadian forests are mostly on public land, where buyers pay “stumpage fees” to provincial governments for the right to log.
The Canadian government is challenging the lumber tariffs in a process under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement that allows Canada and the U.S. to set up trade panels to settle disputes.
Cash prices – what sawmills charge wholesalers – were at US$442 last week for 1,000 board feet of two-by-fours made from Western spruce, pine and fir, according to Madison’s Lumber Reporter, a Vancouver-based industry newsletter.
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