Layoffs begin as Nova Scotia pine products hit by latest Trump tariffs

By Glenn MacDonald
The Chronicle Herald
August 25, 2026
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada East

Nova Scotia’s softwood lumber exports south of the border have been spared from Donald Trump’s tariffs, but pine products from the province are facing steep new costs in the deepening trade rift between Canada and the United States. About 60 to 80 per cent of Nova Scotia’s pine products — some $25 million worth — are shipped to the U.S., and they have been hammered with 50 per cent tariffs imposed by the president over the weekend. The province’s forestry industry said the tariffs “will essentially kill the white pine market in Nova Scotia.” “It’s concerning,” Breck Stuart, president of Forest Nova Scotia, said in an interview Monday. “The western half of Nova Scotia, where there’s a lot of white pine, that’s 30 per cent of our forest. That market basically went to zero overnight. …Stuart said most of the province’s pine products flow through Freeman Lumber in Greenfield, Millett Lumber in Chester and Lewis Moulding and Wood Specialties in Weymouth.

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