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U.S. moves to double Canadian lumber tariffs

woodworkingnetwork.com

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Re: U.S. moves to double Canadian lumber tariffs

#31

Post by hourislate »

It's interesting who owns a lot of the saw mills in Canada.

https://www.lesprom.com/en/news/13_biggest_lumber_companies_...

*Four of the top ten largest firms are based in B.C. (West Fraser, Canfor, Interfor and Tolko), with the first three holding substantial sawmilling assets in the U.S.*

So it seems these Corps own assets on both sides of the border and it isn't clear how these tariffs help them. From what I understand (possibly wrong,) there has even been more consolidation in the Lumber Industry in the last couple of years and like 5 Companies own all the Sawmills on both sides of the border.

Re: U.S. moves to double Canadian lumber tariffs

#32

Post by ncann »

vkou wrote: post #20
jvreeland wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right, what we needs is high housing prices.

This is a great narrative, until we remember that lumber is a tiny fraction of the price of a house.

It still adds 20-30k when building a new house so not exactly a trivial amount.

Re: U.S. moves to double Canadian lumber tariffs

#33

Post by mywittyname »

RoadieRoller wrote: post #8

(I am not a US citizen, but visited many times) Why not build houses using concrete/cement? Poor Asian countries have been building houses for decades using concrete and less maintenance. No, it is not about weather. Concrete can be easily used in Southern US states where winter is less than a month or no snow at all. At least the structure can be concrete and the walls be wood or drywall. I think it is the wood mafi…

Costs.

The type of lumber used to frame American houses is (well, used to be) quite cheap. Concrete is like $10 per cubic foot. While, a timber framed wall is mostly air. An 18x8 foot wall made of timber would take about 16 boards to make and take an experienced team less than 20 minutes to put up. That's $100 or so in material costs at current (extremely high) prices, plus maybe $100 in labor (this is pretty hard to estimate, actually).

That same wall would be like $700 if made from concrete. And labor costs would be probably equally as expensive because those forms take a long time to assemble. They need to be shipped in, assembled, left to cure, disassembled, then hauled away. While lumber just needs to be dropped off the back of a truck into a pile in the yard.

Re: U.S. moves to double Canadian lumber tariffs

#35

Post by wyldfire »

MattGaiser wrote: post #12
pmastela wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I completely out of the loop or is this sarcasm? I thought the lumber costs were skyrocketing and housing prices were too. At least in the US, I thought this was the case.

Not OP, but it is sarcasm. Lumber is at record prices. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lumber

Wow, history goes back to 1979. Roughly same 200-600 USD envelope until 2020.

Re: U.S. moves to double Canadian lumber tariffs

#36

Post by hahahasure »

I can't understand why both political parties are so bad for the 100%.

Rich to poor, it seems everyone is constantly losing.

Who wins? A lumber yard owner? The employees need to buy homes, so they lose. Are we really doing these anti market policies for the benefit of less than 12 people.

Re: U.S. moves to double Canadian lumber tariffs

#37

Post by partiallypro »

btbuildem wrote: post #15

As a Canadian - awesome! (Given that I understand the consequences correctly, that is.) The incredible demand, coupled with supply chain troubles, has driven up the price of lumber here nearly 300% A 8' 2x4 was $2.95 this time last year, today it's $10. I hope this cools the exports of lumber from Canada, and we see the prices move back towards a sane level.

This would actually drive up the price even more though? Demand for lumber is pretty inelastic.

Re: U.S. moves to double Canadian lumber tariffs

#38

Post by hahahasure »

nafizh wrote: post #30

Incredible. Instead of putting tariffs on Chinese cheap stuff that most people can get by without, US is putting tariff on one of the main exports of its closest allies.

Both were painful to US citizens. No reason to paint team Red or Blue was better or worse.

Re: U.S. moves to double Canadian lumber tariffs

#39

Post by peeters »

gher-shyu3i wrote: post #25
clusterfish wrote: post #23

Canadians: meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Trump's steel tariffs are still in place too.

If Trump ordered this it would be all over the news. The double standards are astounding.

This was all over the news. That said nobody in Canada was expecting Biden to be less protectionist, it was clear he was cut from the same cloth as Trump as far as his thoughts on globalization and allies went.

Re: U.S. moves to double Canadian lumber tariffs

#40

Post by nightowl_games »

btbuildem wrote: post #15

As a Canadian - awesome! (Given that I understand the consequences correctly, that is.) The incredible demand, coupled with supply chain troubles, has driven up the price of lumber here nearly 300% A 8' 2x4 was $2.95 this time last year, today it's $10. I hope this cools the exports of lumber from Canada, and we see the prices move back towards a sane level.

As a Canadian, I disagree. The US has unfortunately been shafting Canada on softwood lumber for decades[1].

Your implying that Canadian logging companies are just going to sell cheaper lumber to Canadians. I would say that that's just one piece of the picture.

Canada's economy is based upon selling resources to the United States (mostly oil). The United States historically has abused their monopoly on buying Canadian resources. Since the US is a much larger and stronger country, the US essentially sets the rules.

If American companies stop buying Canadian lumber, it will be a net negative for Canada. We have a massive deficit due to our massive covid stimulus spending. We need American money more than they need Canadian lumber.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_s...

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