Tariffs Finally Hit Canadian Wood Shipments to the U.S.

Everyone’s been waiting to see when the bill would come due for the Trump duties on Canadian Lumber. July was the month.

Prices of Canadian lumber coming into the U.S. are as much as 60 percent higher than they were just a year ago as tariffs instituted by the Trump administration are fully taking hold in the marketplace. Historically, some 85 percent of all wood from Canada has come south of the border because even with previous duties, it was still economically feasible to send it to the U.S. versus further away to other places.

But now Madison’s Lumber Reporter, the respected newsletter that tracks lumber prices and supply chains, is reporting that “with the lumber duty so high, it is now actually less expensive for Canadians to send wood into alternative markets.” The newsletter reports that less than 65 percent of Canadian lumber now is destined for the U.S.

The extra duties are the big factor in this shift but so too is the ongoing malaise in the construction and home building sector in the U.S. The usual summer slowdowns and July holidays in both countries impacted shipments too, Madison’s said.

The newsletter reported that in the week ending August 1, the price of Western Spruce-Pine-Fir was $533 per MFBM (thousand board feet), up $6, or 1 percent from the previous week. That’s up $25 or 5 percent from one month ago. But the real story is that compared to the same week last year that price was up $197, or 60 percent.

Among other findings, Madison’s said “Western-SPF lumber suppliers in Canada reacted with resounding disappointment as duties imposed by the U.S. nearly doubled,” and that “A combination of trade dispute fatigue and the upcoming holiday weekend in Canada resulted in apathy and absenteeism for Eastern-SPF players.”

Even if all of this was to be expected given recent developments in U.S.-Canadian trade policies the hard numbers confirmed the industry’s worst fears that this was no longer something that would happen down the road. They were now here.

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