U.S. Lumber Coalition: Canada Employs Unfounded Scare Tactics in Attempt to Attack President Trump's Successful Trade Policies

Malaysian Reserve

23-07-2025

The U.S. softwood lumber industry is a critical manufacturing industry essential to the national economic strength and the industrial resilience of the United States
Canada's unfair trade in softwood lumber continues to be extremely harmful to U.S. producers and workers
Continued strong trade law enforcement is paramount to bringing about fair pricing of lumber to support future capacity increases for U.S. self-reliance in lumber
WASHINGTON, July 23, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — CNN recently published an article citing the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, backed by Canadian allied organizations such as the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB), attacking President Trump's trade policies. The article claims that tariffs on Canadian building materials, with an emphasis on Canadian lumber imports, will drive up the cost of housing for U.S. consumers. This is incorrect.
'Claims by the National Association of Homebuilders that import duties, or possible future tariffs, against unfairly traded Canadian lumber imports would drive the housing affordability issue routinely have been proven wrong,' stated Zoltan van Heyningen, Executive Director of the U.S. Lumber Coalition, adding that 'an honest conversation about housing affordability, such as Prime Minister Carney engaged in when talking about housing affordability issues in Canada, would mainly focus on the cost of land, regulatory costs, labor, and high profitability rates of homebuilders.'
'President Trump's America First trade policies, which include the unyielding enforcement of U.S. trade laws against dumped and subsidized Canadian lumber imports, has resulted in a massive boost of U.S. production of softwood lumber to build American homes with American lumber produced by American workers,' stated Andrew Miller, Chair/Owner of Stimson Lumber Company.
Increased U.S. capacity through the enforcement of the U.S. trade laws means that today the United States can supply the vast majority of its own lumber needs. U.S. mills have added 8.8 billion board feet of capacity since 2016 in the form of new mills and expansions of existing mills. The U.S. industry has produced 30 billion additional board feet of softwood lumber during this period. These increases have more than offset any decline in unfairly traded Canadian imports and are enough lumber to build two million new single-family homes.
'In order to continue seeing the massive growth of U.S. softwood lumber production capacity that we have seen over the last nine years as a result of U.S. trade law enforcement, it is essential that President Trump takes all necessary steps to downsizing Canada's unsustainable 8 billion board feet of excess lumber capacity that is stifling continued U.S. growth,' continued Miller.
'Canada's massive excess lumber capacity coupled with Canada needing to ship 60 to 70 percent of all their lumber production into the U.S. market in order to maintain that capacity is driving Canada to continue engaging in egregious unfair trade practices,' added Miller.
'Canadian softwood lumber companies, not U.S. consumers, directly pay the import duties through their U.S. subsidiaries. This is reflected in their financial statements, and is not a cost that they can pass on to the consumers in today's weak lumber market,' stated van Heyningen, adding that 'naturally, this is a fact that is overlooked by those seeking to attack President Trump's successful trade policies as it is an inconvenient truth.'
'To date, Canadian softwood lumber companies have paid an estimated 7 billion dollars to U.S. taxpayers, and will be on the hook for an additional estimated 1.3 billion dollars once the U.S. Department of Commerce issues its latest results in the ongoing antidumping and anti-subsidy trade cases,' explained van Heyningen.
'Canada is desperately trying to avoid paying their bill to the U.S. taxpayers and is pushing the outrageous scheme of using the collected duties slated for the U.S. Treasury as a bailout of the Canadian industry to secure jobs for Canadian workers. They are suggesting relieving Canada from having to pay future duties while continuing to dump their excess lumber into the U.S. market,' added van Heyningen. 'This is an affront to the principles of U.S. trade law enforcement, to U.S. taxpayers, and to U.S. industry and its workers who simply want to be able to compete on a level playing field.'
U.S. lumber industry response to Canada's proposal that the United States terminate its trade cases against Canadian lumber in order to bail out the Canadian industry and secure jobs for Canadian workers. https://uslumbercoalition.org/press-release/u-s-lumber-coalition-responds-to-prime-minister-carney-statement/
U.S. lumber industry and workers letter to President Trump on the need for continued strong enforcement of the U.S. trade laws to keep expanding U.S. lumber manufacturing and availability to build more American homes with American lumber. https://uslumbercoalition.org/story/u-s-lumber-industry-and-workers-letter-to-president-trump/
Enforcing 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 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. Our goal is to serve as the voice of the American lumber community and effectively address Canada's unfair softwood lumber trade practices. The Coalition supports the full enforcement of the U.S. trade laws to allow the U.S. industry to invest and grow to its natural size without being impaired by unfairly traded imports. Continued full enforcement of the U.S. trade laws will strengthen domestic supply lines by maximizing long-term domestic production and lumber availability produced by U.S. workers to build U.S. homes. For more information, please visit the Coalition's website at www.uslumbercoalition.org.
CONTACT: Zoltan van [e-mail] | 202-805-9133