WASHINGTON — The U.S. Lumber Coalition have released comments on Canada's softwood lumber industry and trade practices:

Ongoing unfair trade practices by Canada's softwood lumber industry remain extremely harmful to U.S. lumber producers, workers, and their forest-dependent communities, the coalition begins in its statement. Following recent confirmation by the U.S. Department of Commerce that those unfair practices have worsened, Canada now seeks to avoid accountability under U.S. trade laws that could result in the Canadian industry paying additional duties of $1.3 billion based on its behavior in 2023 alone.

"It appears that Canada's solution to a problem of its own making is to ask the Trump Administration for a bailout while seeking to avoid liability for the egregious unfair trade practices documented by the U.S. Department of Commerce," stated Zoltan van Heyningen, executive director of the U.S. Lumber Coalition. "Canada and its U.S. allies are, in effect, attempting to use U.S. border tax revenues paid by the very Canadian exporters that violated our trade laws in the first place as a handout to themselves and as a payoff to the U.S. industry to drop its longstanding trade case against them."

"This is an outrageous scheme being pushed by the Canadian industry that would not only absolve them of accountability for their past unfair trade practices but would also allow them to continue dumping their massive volume of excess lumber into the U.S. market," added van Heyningen.

Andrew Miller, chairman/owner of Stimson Lumber Co, affirmed once again that, "Canada's suggestion that the Trump Administration use money owed to the U.S. taxpaying public to save the Canadian industry from the consequences of its own cheating is an absolute affront to the hard working men and women in the American forestry industry."

"Canada has increased its excess lumber capacity threefold since 2016, to the tune of an estimated 8.7 billion board feet of excess production capacity," stated Miller. "Instead of addressing that excess capacity and production, Canada's only focus remains increasing their shipments into the United States, further increasing excess and unneeded lumber production, and increasing subsidies to its own industry."

"Left unchecked, this would spell disaster for U.S. lumber producers, U.S. lumber supply chains, and U.S. workers. We will not stand for that. We have faith that President Trump will continue to strongly enforce our trade laws against Canada, and that he will take additional steps to accomplish his objective of making the United States fully self-reliant for all of its softwood lumber needs," concluded Miller.