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US lumber futures have fallen from their all-time highs after president Trump’s delay to tariffs on Canada this week halted a surge in prices.
Contracts tracking a truckload of lumber hit the highest point in their 30-month history this week on fears that Trump would impose sweeping tariffs on goods from Canada, its largest exporter.
The country supplies 30 per cent of the softwood lumber used in the US for housing and furniture, and the uncertainty of supply adds to an already fragile housing sector in the US.
Trump initially planned to impose 25 per cent tariffs on critical Canadian imports, boosting prices, but Thursday’s pause for a month pushed prices for delivery in May down more than 6 per cent over two days, to $651 per thousand board feet.
Even so, prices remain elevated as Trump also ordered a federal investigation into Canadian companies potentially dumping excess supplies into the US market.
The Department of Commerce proposed to almost triple anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber. Together with potential tariffs, the total duty on Canadian imports could rise from 14.5 per cent to 52 per cent.
“This is going to be devastating for Canadian producers,” said Dustin Jalbert, senior economist for wood products at price reporting agency Fastmarkets. “No Canadian producer is making the margin to be able to absorb that.”
Jalbert added that the US housing market is already constrained by high interest rates and labour shortages, which could be worsened by Trump’s crackdown on undocumented migrants. “[Builders] are getting hit from all angles right now,” he said.
The skirmishes step up the long-running dispute between the US and Canada over softwood lumber. The US argues that Canadian lumber producers, who often harvest timber from publicly owned lands at regulated prices, receive unfair government subsidies and sell lumber into the US market at prices below production costs.
“The United States faces significant vulnerabilities in the wood supply chain from imported timber, lumber, and derivative products being dumped on to the US market,” Trump said in his executive order.
The probe follows similar investigations into copper, steel, and aluminium, reflecting the administration’s broader push to curb foreign competition and strengthen domestic industries.
Canada’s forest product industry is one of the country’s largest employers — providing 200,000 direct jobs, operating in hundreds of communities and generating more than $87bn in revenues.
Derek Nighbor, Forest Products Association of Canada president, urged the US to avoid imposing tariffs.
They will damage a long and well-functioning integrated forest products supply chain that runs two ways and benefits Americans and Canadians alike, he said in a statement.
“It will create business uncertainty on both sides of the border and will drive up costs for building materials and everyday household products for Americans,” he said.
