Kelly McCloskey
Robert McKellar
Over the past two years, Tree Frog has periodically turned to political risk consultant Robert McKellar to help readers better understand the geopolitical forces increasingly shaping the business environment in which the North American forest sector operates. In his feature Trump’s Second Term and Political Risk in the Canadian Forest Sector, Robert explored how changing politics, government policy and international relations can create both risks and opportunities for forest companies. In doing so, he also introduced readers to the discipline of political risk management—a practical framework for anticipating and responding to an increasingly uncertain world.
Robert’s earlier articles generated thoughtful feedback and reinforced a common observation: the pace of global change is becoming increasingly difficult to follow. Every day seems to bring another headline about tariffs, trade disputes, wars, sanctions, shipping disruptions, energy prices, artificial intelligence, or some other geopolitical development. For many of us, the challenge is no longer keeping up with the news—it’s deciding what actually deserves our attention. Which developments are likely to influence markets, trade and investment in the forest sector? Which simply warrant monitoring? And which are little more than background noise? Those questions are central to political risk management. They are also questions we increasingly hear from readers trying to make sense of a relentless news cycle and what it means for their businesses and organizations.
In this article, Robert steps back from the daily headlines to explain how political risk professionals approach that challenge. His answer offers a practical framework for separating signal from noise—and a useful way of thinking about the global forces increasingly shaping the future of the forest sector.
The US will impose a 25% tariff on most imports from Brazil starting July 22, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said on Wednesday — the first action under the Trump administration’s new tariff strategy that could eventually affect dozens of countries. …Wednesday’s announcement follows a proposal by the Trump administration in June to impose a punitive tariff of 25% on many imports from Brazil after deciding its practices were unfair on a range of issues from digital trade to illegal deforestation. The tariffs would apply to thousands of Brazilian imports, including sugar, agricultural machinery, apparel, electrical machinery, paper and steel. The U.S. said it would exempt all the products proposed for exemption in the June notice, except high-purity dissolving pulp and non-pharmaceutical applications of certain products. The exemptions include beef, coffee, rare earths, energy products, aircraft and aircraft parts.
A sweeping bipartisan housing affordability bill President Trump has refused — so far — to sign is set to become law on Friday, provided the president doesn’t act. The legislation, called the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, aims to improve housing affordability by incentivizing local governments to build more homes by streamlining complex environmental review processes, making it easier for credit unions and banks to issue mortgages, expanding access to modular homes, and restricting large corporate investors from purchasing single-family homes. Following months of negotiations, the bill passed Congress by wide margins in late June. …But even without Trump’s signature, the housing bill is on track to become law on Friday due to a quirk of constitutional law. …Trump could still veto the bill before Friday, although the final version passed Congress so overwhelmingly — 85-5 in the Senate and 358-32 in the House — that the legislative branch could potentially override his veto.
State-level permitting activity continued to reflect a divided housing market through the first five months of 2026. Elevated mortgage rates and ongoing affordability challenges continued to weigh on single-family construction across much of the country, while multifamily permitting remained comparatively stronger, supported by gains in several regions despite continued weakness in parts of the South. Over the first five months of the year, the number of single-family permits issued nationwide reached 380,130. Compared with the same period in 2025, this represents a 6.1 percent decline compared with the May 2025 total of 404,977. In contrast, multifamily permitting activity remained stronger, with 208,192 permits issued nationwide, marking a 6.5 percent increase from the same period last year.
On July 9, 2026, Mercer International received a notice from Nasdaq staff that the company’s common stock had failed to meet the exchange’s minimum bid price requirement of $1.00 per share for 30 consecutive business days, triggering a formal non-compliance status under Nasdaq rules. The notification does not immediately affect the listing or trading of Mercer’s securities, but it places the company under an initial 180-day compliance period in which it must restore its share price to at least $1.00 for ten consecutive business days to avoid potential future delisting pressure. Mercer is working to regain compliance, though it acknowledges there is no assurance it can meet the requirement within the timeframe. The development… could influence investor sentiment and the company’s capital markets flexibility depending on its ability to achieve and sustain the mandated bid price threshold. [to access the full story a Globe and Mail subscription is required]
High mortgage rates aren’t the only reason homeownership remains out of reach for many Americans. Behind the scenes, homebuilders are grappling with an overlooked challenge — a shortage of skilled workers — that is slowing construction and making it harder to close the nation’s housing gap. Builders say the labor shortage is creating a ripple effect throughout the housing market, delaying projects, raising construction costs and limiting the number of new homes coming online at a time when demand continues to outpace supply. “Labor is one of the largest and most expensive inputs when it comes to home production and land development,” Jim Tobin, president and CEO of the NAHB. He said that every month, the construction industry is short by approximately 250,000 workers. …A recent NAHB report estimates builders will need roughly 723,000 new workers annually to keep pace with demand and help close the nation’s 1.5 million-home housing gap.
A historic drought is turning Colorado’s mountain landscapes into a tinderbox. After last winter’s record-low snowpack, wildland firefighters who continuously monitor indexes of weather and climate data to help predict wildfire risk and how conditions might affect fire behavior say they’re staring down unprecedented levels of dryness. “That lack of snowpack has had a very real impact on the fuels, the vegetation — specifically the large logs that are on the ground,” said Jim King, the fire behavior analyst for the Willow Fire burning near Leadville. “Those are 1,000-hour fuels. The way we measure those in this line of work, they’re just at the very peak. They’re basically as dry as they can get.” …King described how bone-dry logs in the dense forest near Turquoise Lake, along with high winds, contributed to 100-foot columns of flames and extreme fire behavior that at times threw “spots” …more than a half mile ahead of the blaze.
CALIFORNIA — A bipartisan bill intended to protect people and forests from wildfires in the Shasta-Trinity and other national forests is dividing lawmakers and conservationists in Northern California and nationwide. Supporters of the Fix Our Forests Act say it speeds up the bureaucratic process for approving projects that reduce wildfire risk in national forests. These include control burn and vegetation removal projects. A chorus of conservationists opposed to the bill say they worry about uncontrolled logging in some of the country’s pristine forestlands. …According to the bill’s wording, it would limit how much environmental protection oversight projects that reduce vegetation would have to surmount before they’re approved. It also would limit legal challenges to those projects from community and environmental groups. The latter has been dividing lawmakers across both parties for more than a year.
To Caleb Chaplin, it’s clear what sets a patch of old forest on his family’s land in Naples apart from the woods around it. …Some of the trees are up to 200 years old. Foresters call these woods “late successional and old growth.” They’re also some of the rarest features on Maine’s landscape, trap lots of greenhouse gas and provide critical habitat for unique species. Chaplin said his family was planning to harvest the stand this year. …Then they learned the New England Forestry Foundation would pay them to delay harvesting. Chaplin said it was a tough decision at a time when these big trees are drawing some of the highest prices in the timber market. Ultimately, the family agreed to leave the stand alone for 10 years, and work with the foundation to develop a permanent conservation plan.
Trees do not necessarily keep growing for as long as they keep photosynthesizing, according to a new study published in Science Advances. Researchers found that oak trees continue absorbing carbon dioxide well after their annual growth has ended, suggesting forests may store less carbon in wood than many climate models currently predict. The discovery challenges a long standing assumption that higher rates of photosynthesis naturally lead to greater tree growth. If trees continue taking in carbon without turning much of it into new wood, less carbon may remain locked away over the long term. …Scientists have generally expected that rising atmospheric CO2 levels would boost photosynthesis, leading to faster growth and increased long term carbon storage. The new findings suggest …trees may continue absorbing carbon, [but] much of it does not necessarily become new wood. Instead,[it’s] used for other functions, reducing the amount of carbon stored in forests compared with previous expectations.
COLORADO — A pilot from Sooke on Vancouver Island was killed after the helicopter he was flying while battling wildfires in Colorado crashed into a reservoir. The aircraft reportedly went down in the Silver Jack Reservoir, shortly after 5 p.m. Sunday. The Gunnison County Sheriff’s Office says a dive team recovered the body of 56-year-old Nicholas Dale of Sooke, BC, from the submerged helicopter. The sheriff’s office says the helicopter was battling the 148-square-kilometre Gold Mountain wildfire when the crash occurred. It said the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are still investigating the incident. …The Associated Press reported that a procession of law enforcement vehicles carried Dale’s body to the city of Grand Junction, as residents turned out to express their gratitude to the fallen pilot and the thousands of firefighters still battling the blaze. …Dale was the fourth person killed in recent weeks while battling Colorado wildfires. 
