Kevin Mason
At the Global Wood Summit last week, Zoltan van Heyningen, Executive Director of the U.S. Lumber Coalition, shared the U.S. perspective on the softwood lumber file. Zoltan emphasized that duties are a legal process stemming from administration of U.S. trade law and are distinct from tariffs, which are policy driven trade action. As such, the imposition of duties on Canadian lumber imports is not a policy debate, it is a legal process. Functionally a “Trump tariff” could be in addition to duties. From the U.S. perspective, the softwood lumber trade case has been extremely effective. According to the Coalition, since the case was filed in 2016: Canadian mills have accounted for 74% of curtailments and 60% of mill closures by capacity… and U.S. operating rates are now consistently higher than in Canada, a deviation from historical norms. …In Washington, the softwood lumber case is seen as a poster child demonstrating the positive impact of trade law enforcement on domestic industry.
Our Take: Mr. van Heyningen was very clear regarding the disposition of duties that have been collected—the majority won’t be treated any differently than other duties collected by U.S. Customs and would be liquidated into the Treasury. Trade deals, such as the prior Softwood Lumber Agreement, are very rare, but the door remains open for a negotiated settlement. However, there has to be “something in it” for the U.S. Coalition (and its members). We suspect that 10 cents on the dollar will not suffice this time around as Canadians have a weaker hand this time if/when negotiations commence. …We do not foresee pricing remaining in this upward trend through year-end and into 2025, and a seasonal slowdown in demand after U.S. Thanksgiving should precipitate a pullback in pricing later this quarter. However, supply and demand are clearly better matched today than they have been at any point over the past couple of years.
In a way, the stock market’s vote of confidence was surprising: Trump’s economic platform is a mix bag. Tax relief and deregulation are popular with investors, but trade-disrupting tariffs and budget-busting deficits could push up interest rates down the road. For Canadians, however, the Trump bag is not so mixed: new economic threats from Trump’s America are clearly on their way. …A lower corporate income tax rate, deregulation and energy renewal will be magnets for investment from Canada. Tariff policy and a review of NAFTA 2.0 would be especially harmful as we would be shut out of U.S. markets. Given nationalistic economic leanings on both sides of the aisle in Congress, we should expect more not fewer trade restrictions in the next four years. What should we do? Two things. Create a new growth agenda and work hard to protect our access to the huge U.S. market. 
Framing lumber prices continued to climb, and traders tried to assess a number of factors that might affect the market moving forward. The US presidential election injected a dose of optimism among some traders. They also weighed the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut the benchmark interest rate 25 basis points, while Freddie Mac noted mortgage rates were still rising. The Random Lengths Framing Lumber Composite Price gained for the sixth straight week, climbing $11 to $441. That is its highest level since August 2023. A fading Southern Pine market was once again an exception to an otherwise upward trend in most framing lumber species. While supply-driven strength persisted in Canada and the western US, downward price momentum mounted in the South. …Western S-P-F prices continued to climb by double-digit increments in most cases. Buyers with immediate needs padded thin inventories with available supplies.
The global market for mass timber is expected to grow to $3.7 billion by 2032 from $1.5 billion in 2020, according to 2023 report. This growth is being driven by the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific building construction industries. Hyperlocal approaches to creating a mass timber industry are already taking shape around the world. …In North America, 
In just over five years, the world will arrive at its first major checkpoint on climate action: a 2030 deadline to meet a series of green targets aimed at avoiding the most devastating impacts of global warming. These goals … are intended to put the global economy on a path to reducing the amount of greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere. Yet … carbon dioxide emissions hit a new record last year. That means the world faces a steeper, far costlier and more disruptive journey to reach net zero by 2050. And that was before the re-election of Donald Trump. With a second term in the White House, Trump is unlikely to steer the world’s second-biggest polluter to decarbonize faster than the current pace. In fact, Trump has vowed to undo many of the nation’s expansive climate policies and withdraw from global cooperation. The consequences will extend far beyond the US.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts is developing technology that aims to use lasers to drastically cut emissions and energy use from Maine’s paper and pulp industry. They received a $2.75 million U.S. Department of Energy grant to help ready the industrial drying technology for commercial use. …Worcester Polytechnic’s drying research center has been working on ways to dry paper, pulp, and other materials using the concentrated energy found in lasers. The lasers Yagoobi’s team is using are not the lasers of the public imagination, like a red beam zapping at alien enemies. Though the lasers are quite strong — they can melt metal, Yagoobi says — they are dispersed over a larger area, spreading out the energy to evenly and gently dry the target material. Testing on food products has shown that the technology can work. Now, researchers need to learn more about how the laser energy affects different materials to make sure the product quality is not compromised during the drying process.
POMPTON LAKES, N.J. — Fire crews on both coasts of the United States continued battling wildfires on Sunday, including a blaze in New York and New Jersey that killed a parks employee and another in Southern California that destroyed more than 130 structures and damaged dozens more. Firefighters continued making progress against a wildfire northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County that broke out Wednesday and quickly exploded in size due to dry, warm and gusty Santa Ana winds. The Mountain Fire prompted thousands of residents to flee their homes and was 26% contained as of Sunday, up from 21% the previous day. The fire’s size remains around 32 square miles. …Meanwhile, New York State Police said they were investigating the death of 18 year-old Dariel Vasquez, who died when a tree fell on him Saturday afternoon as he battled a major brush fire in New York state’s Greenwood Lake near the New Jersey line.
The Shoe Fire that burned more than 5,000 acres north of Lake Shasta was caused by a landowner who lost control of an unpermitted burn that he was doing on his own property, the U.S. Forest Service said. The fire started on Oct. 9 before it was finally contained on Nov. 9. An investigation determined the fire started within a meadow on private land before it spread to adjacent properties and National Forest lands, the Forest Service posted on its Facebook page. Forest Service spokesman Tom Stokesberry said the man has been cited for violations of federal law. He did not know the specific charges. The Forest Service also did not release the name of the landowner. …Cost to suppress the fire reached is an estimated $42.5 million, according to the National Interagency Fire Center’s situation report.
