Employing U.S. President Donald Trump’s marquee slogan, Prime Minister Mark Carney told a New York City business crowd on Thursday that “Canada strong will help make America great again,” a remark the U.S. envoy to this country said was “worth repeating.” Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, the prime minister detailed his economic diversification strategy, and his plans to recalibrate Canada’s relationships and reputation. “We’re focused on what we can control, and that means weaving a dense web of international partnerships abroad. That’s making us a much stronger, more resilient, more independent country,” Carney told the business crowd. Touting some key areas where the federal Liberals have made progress, Carney sought to make the case for why Canada and the U.S. should continue to co-operate in key sectors. … Business Council of Canada CEO Goldy Hyder said he thought Carney was “pitch perfect” in acknowledging the areas where Canada needs to do better.
– The Trump administration’s trade agency said on Wednesday it will kick off the first of three negotiating rounds with Mexico this week to revamp the North American trade agreement, but made no mention of any talks with Canada. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office said in a statement that Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jeffrey Goettman will lead bilateral talks in Mexico City on Thursday and Friday focused on “economic security and rules of origin for key industrial goods.” USTR Jamieson Greer stayed in Washington to attend a White House cabinet meeting on Thursday. USTR said the U.S. and Mexico will hold a second round of negotiations in Washington June 16 to 17, focused on agriculture and “a level playing field,” with a third set of talks in Mexico City scheduled for the week of July 20. …But USTR’s statement made no mention of bilateral talks with Canada.
The Trump administration intends to maintain tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said as the US launches negotiations to revamp the North American free trade pact. The US has “significant” trade issues with Canada. …”The US is going to have tariffs,” Greer said. “I mean, even with somebody like Mexico, or other countries that are in our own hemisphere, we’re going to have tariffs as long as we have a giant trade deficit.” His comments that the 6-year-old US-Mexico-Canada Agreement will not continue as a tariff-free trade pact echo comments he made privately last month to industry executives in Mexico — that auto and steel tariffs will remain in place under the revamped USMCA. …Greer said the Trump administration’s issues with Canada go well beyond trade “irritants” and it was difficult to see how the two can work out their differences.
The United States’ top trade official says he’s pushing for changes to continental trade rules to prioritize U.S. content in manufacturing supply chains, but sees a path to preferential tariff rates in North America if Canada and Mexico co-operate with external tariffs on other countries. At the same time, Jamieson Greer warned that negotiations with Canada around the future of the country’s auto sector could be difficult, while discussions about trade in commodities should prove easier. …Canada has not yet started formal talks with the U.S. and won’t be at the negotiating table this week in Mexico City. The three governments have to decide on July 1 whether to extend the agreement for 16 years or move to a period of annual reviews for 10 years. …Ottawa has signalled an openness to this type of “Fortress North America” approach. But Prime Minister Mark Carney wants to see the U.S. lower its sectoral tariffs on automobiles, steel, aluminum, copper and wood products in return for moves toward deeper integration in key sectors. [A Globe and Mail subscription is required for full access to this story]
KINGSPORT, Tennessee — Domtar Paper has filed a response to 
Rising mortgage rates aren’t the only thing freezing the housing market. Builders are contending with a fresh wave of sticker shock on the job site, as soaring prices for copper, lumber, diesel and aluminum drive up the cost of putting homes in the ground. A mix of geopolitical turmoil, tariffs and supply-chain disruptions is rippling through construction materials markets at a moment when affordability is already stretched thin, the Wall Street Journal reported. The result is higher costs for developers, more uncertainty for homebuilders and even fewer paths to affordable homeownership. Copper has become one of the industry’s biggest headaches. …Lumber prices are climbing again, too. Canadian sawmill closures and tariffs tied to the long-running U.S.-Canada softwood dispute have tightened supply heading into peak building season. …The broader concern for developers is that construction inflation could become self-reinforcing. Higher material costs feed broader inflation fears, which in turn keep borrowing costs elevated. 
The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), Washington, has released its 66th Annual Paper Industry Capacity and Fiber Consumption Survey. …The report shows that fiber consumption declined by 3.5% in 2025, with recovered fiber consumption decreasing by 4% and wood pulp consumption falling by 3.2%. The printing-writing paper operating rate improved, reaching 82.8% in 2025, while containerboard operating rates remained steady at 91.9%. Packaging paper production also increased by 1.7%, while boxboard production essentially was flat at 12.4 million tons and tissue production remained near 7.8 million tons. Despite the resilience shown by these sectors, US paper and paperboard production declined 3.7% last year, to 66.3 million tons, AF&PA says. …Containerboard production fell 4.4% to 36.1 million tons, and containerboard capacity declined 5.1% in 2025. …Printing-writing capacity fell 13.9% last year to 7.7 million tons. …Tissue production declined 0.8% in 2025 to 7.8 million tons, though, over time, it has represented a growing share of total US paper and paperboard capacity.
As bad as things got in Los Angeles in January 2025, when 31 people died and more than 16,000 buildings were destroyed by wildfires roaring into residential neighborhoods, many wildland firefighters look back on the rest of last year as a dodged bullet. Across the nation, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), which coordinates the federal wildfire response, the total area burned in 2025 was about two-thirds of the average over the past 10 years. This year is shaping up to be a very different prospect, wildfire experts warn. Key environmental indicators show that the nation is a tinderbox, gripped by widespread drought and with a light snowpack in the mountains that will offer little relief as its remnants melt away. At the same time, upheaval in the federal wildland firefighting effort and the loss of many staff qualified to join wildfire incident teams since Donald Trump took power for the second time have left firefighters deeply concerned about their ability to mount an effective response.
DENVER — A longstanding specter of the Colorado mountains is gaining ground in a new conquest of ponderosa pine forests. An outbreak of the mountain pine beetle is spreading quickly and expected to continue this summer under “prime conditions,” according to a 
With Oregon facing what state leaders say could be another difficult wildfire season, questions are emerging about whether major changes inside the U.S. Forest Service could eventually impact how quickly fires are detected and attacked across the West. “All indications suggest a more challenging fire season ahead of all of us,” said Oregon Governor Tina Kotek… The warning comes after a historically warm winter, low snowpack levels, and worsening drought conditions across parts of Oregon. At the same time, the Forest Service is undergoing major national restructuring efforts, including consolidating research facilities and closing its nine regional offices nationwide. …Still, federal firefighters and local fire leaders say they do not expect major disruptions to wildfire response this season. “I think there’s just a growing amount of apprehension about what it’s gonna look like on the ground level in a couple of years’ time,” said Kieran Evans, a squad leader with the Forest Service.
NAPLES, Maine — The New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) is giving out grants to landowners to help preserve some of Maine’s oldest trees. The organization got $4.3 million from the U.S. Forest Service in 2024 to pay loggers to put off cutting late-successional and old-growth forests, which are typically over 100 years old. The first grant was awarded to Chaplin Logging Inc. in Naples to conserve 23 acres of late-successional forest and improve other parts of their land. This type of forest is rare for southern Maine. The one on the Chaplins’ property has been mostly untouched for likely more than a hundred years. According to Brian Milakovsky, senior forester of NEFF, these trees provide a unique habitat for many important species and they’re good for the atmosphere. …Since these trees are being taken out of production, part of the grant is going toward timber stand improvement, removing undesirable trees in landowners’ other, younger forests.
This week’s chemical blast that killed at least eight workers at Longview’s Nippon Dynawave Packaging highlights the potential dangers in the timber and paper manufacturing industries. …“We work in a highly hazardous atmosphere, in a highly hazardous industry,” Brian Wood, director of support services for Nippon Dynawave, said. …The industries involved in the range of economic activities from cutting timber to manufacturing paper have shed jobs in recent decades, yet this sector continues to have some of the deadliest occupations. The disaster in Longview highlights the dangerous chemicals used in paper making. In 2024, 13 people were killed while working at their paper manufacturing job, according to the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Across the country jobs in the sector have plummeted. In the last quarter century, BLS figures show paper manufacturing employment fell by 230,000 jobs to sit around 355,000 across the country. Industry researchers estimate as many as 45 mills closed last year.
LONGVIEW, Wash. — A massive chemical tank holding nearly a million gallons of a highly corrosive liquid imploded and collapsed Tuesday at a Washington paper mill, killing at least one worker and leaving nine others unaccounted for with no hope for rescue, authorities said. Another nine people were injured, some severely, in the spill at Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. in Longview. The cause remained unclear. “At the moment we are not aware of any rescues that are yet to be made,” Cowlitz Fire and Rescue Chief Scott Goldstein said during a Tuesday evening news conference in which officials repeatedly referred to the situation as a recovery effort. That effort would not resume until Wednesday morning, when emergency responders planned to work on stabilizing the collapsed tank, which still had about 90,000 gallons (more than 340,000 liters) of a chemical brew known as “white liquor” inside, and then search for the missing, Goldstein said.
MAINE — The fire and subsequent explosion at a Maine lumber mill that killed a firefighter and injured a dozen other people was accidental and originated at the base of a silo, authorities said Tuesday. …Rapid ignition of particulate material resulted in an explosion in the silo that caused it to lift from its concrete base and release large amounts of sawdust and other materials, the Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office said. The silo then toppled and the surrounding area became engulfed in fire, the office said. Investigators will return to the facility in the coming months to conduct a more detailed examination, the fire marshal’s office said. “Investigators also determined the facility’s fire suppression system, which was located near the top of the silo, did not activate because temperatures at that elevation did not reach the activation threshold after the fire originated at the base of the silo,” the office’s statement said.