U.S. president takes run at Canada’s lumber firms

MONTREAL — U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter a day after imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum to call out Canada’s softwood-lumber industry, a sector that could provide insight for others on resilience in the face of tariff adversity.

Trump criticized Canada’s softwood lumber and agriculture policies, using them as examples of how America is being treated poorly by Canada.

“Canada has treated our Agricultural business and Farmers very poorly for a very long period of time. Highly restrictive on Trade! They must open their markets and take down their trade barriers!” the president tweeted Friday.

“They report a really high surplus on trade with us. Do Timber & Lumber in U.S.?”

Canada’s softwood lumber sector has been dealing with the latest U.S. tariffs to hit the industry for nearly a year, handing over more than $200 million in 2017 to cover duties of about 20 per cent of the value of all exports.

Hundreds of millions more is expected to be deposited in 2018 as well.

The lesson to be learned by Canadian industry is that the disputes aren’t about fact, subsidy or national security, said Susan Yurkovich, president of the B.C. Lumber Trade Council.

“This is about protectionism and, sadly, this is the lesson that the steel and aluminum folks are learning just as lumber has learned time and time again,” Yurkovich said.

However, the Canadian lumber industry has been less damaged than had been anticipated as duties imposed by the U.S. government have been passed on to U.S. consumers in the form of higher prices.

Nonetheless, Canadian lumber exports south of the border have decreased, affecting 2,000 to 3,000 jobs that would have otherwise been created, said Michael Burt, executive director of Industry Trends at the Conference Board of Canada.