Tariff costs and Canadian industry scrutiny
Van Heyningen further stated, “Canadian softwood lumber companies, not US consumers, directly pay the import duties through their US 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.”
“To date, Canadian softwood lumber companies have paid an estimated 7 billion dollars to US taxpayers and will be on the hook for an additional estimated 1.3 billion dollars once the US Department of Commerce issues its latest results in the ongoing antidumping and anti-subsidy trade cases,” he added.
“Canada is desperately trying to avoid paying their bill to the US taxpayers and is pushing the outrageous scheme of using the collected duties slated for the US Treasury as a bailout of the Canadian industry to secure jobs for Canadian workers,” van Heyningen said. “They are suggesting relieving Canada from having to pay future duties while continuing to dump their excess lumber into the US market.”
“This is an affront to the principles of US trade law enforcement, to US taxpayers, and to US industry and its workers who simply want to be able to compete on a level playing field,” he said.
But many market watchers, including the Federal Reserve, view the Trump tariffs as potentially inflationary. The central bank has left interest rates on hold so far this year as it waits to see how the tariffs will impact the economy, and chair Jerome Powell has highlighted that prices could jump across the board from the trade war.