WASHINGTON — Canadians are waking up to a new and uncertain reality after U.S. President Donald Trump’s deadline for economy-wide tariffs passed with no relent overnight, triggering a continental trade war. The president’s executive order hitting Canada and Mexico with 25 per cent across-the-board tariffs, with a lower 10 per cent levy on Canadian energy, took effect at 12:01 a.m. ET. …Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to hold a press conference in Ottawa Tuesday morning with Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Public Safety Minister David McGuinty. Canada’s response is to start with tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods immediately and tariffs on the remaining $125 billion worth of American products 21 days later. The S&P 500 dropped two per cent in Monday afternoon trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.5 per cent and the Nasdaq composite slumped 2.6 per cent. Ontario Premier Doug Ford warned Americans that Canada would have a strong response and suggested he could shut down the movement of critical minerals and energy into the United States. He said Trump needs to pull back for the sake of Americans and Canadians.
In related coverage:
- The Whitehouse: Trump Proceeds With Tariffs On Canada and Mexico
- Forbes: Trump’s Tariffs Start Today—Here’s How They Could Impact Prices
- NY Times: China and Canada retaliate with Mexico to counter on Sunday
- 11News Colorado: Experts weigh in as Colorado and the country prepare for tariffs
US President Trump on Saturday 
Donald Trump has ordered a probe into dumping in the US lumber market, setting the stage for the industry to join the widening basket of commodities targeted by Washington’s global trade war. The president directed the Department of Commerce to investigate whether imports of lumber and wood products were undermining domestic loggers in a way that posed a risk to US national security, days after ordering a similar review of the copper industry. …Forestry is big business for Canada. In 2022, the sector contributed C$33.4bn to real GDP, or about 1.2%. In the same year Canada’s forest product exports were valued at C$45.6bn, with the majority destined for the US. …Derek Nighbor, FPAC president, said any increase in tariffs on lumber would hurt forest sector employees on both sides of the border. …But Andrew Miller, chair of the US Lumber Coalition, said: “Canada’s unfair trade comes at the direct expense of US companies and workers.”
Yesterday, we featured an op-ed by political risk management expert Robert McKellar on how Donald Trump’s re-election is changing the political risk landscape for the Canadian forest sector. While U.S. trade disputes are not new, the unpredictability of Trump’s approach to trade policy creates new challenges that Canadian exporters must assess and manage. McKellar presents a structured way to evaluate these risks using the devil’s advocacy approach, a method that considers both worst- and best-case scenarios to develop a balanced assessment. Trump has proposed three different types of tariffs—bi-national, product-specific, and reciprocal—which, if applied together, could significantly impact the sector. By examining multiple possibilities, McKellar provides companies with a way to better prepare for potential disruptions rather than reacting in crisis mode. And as today’s 
China suspended on Tuesday the soybean import licences of three U.S. firms and halted imports of U.S. logs, stepping up its retaliation for Donald Trump’s decision to impose an extra 10% duty on China. …The suspension of U.S. logs was a direct response to Trump’s move on March 1 to order a trade investigation on imported lumber. Trump had earlier told reporters that he was thinking about imposing a 25% tariff rate on lumber and forest products. “The announcement of import restrictions on U.S lumber and soybeans linked with phytosanitary issues follows a long history of similar measures by Beijing,” said Even Pay, agriculture analyst at Trivium China. …China is one of the world’s largest importers of wood products and the third-largest destination for U.S. forest products. It imported around $850 million worth of logs and other rough wood products from the U.S. in 2024, according to Chinese customs data.
BEIJING – China suspended on Tuesday the soybean import licenses of three U.S. firms and halted imports of U.S. lumber, stepping up retaliatory action after the United States imposed additional tariffs on Chinese goods. Earlier in the day, China also imposed import levies covering $21 billion worth of U.S. agricultural and food products… Customs said it detected ergot and seed coating agent in imported U.S. soybeans while the suspension of U.S. lumber imports was due to the detection of small worms, aspergillus and other pests. …Beijing’s retaliatory measures were in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to impose an extra 10% duty on China, effective Tuesday, resulting in a cumulative 20% tariff in response to what the White House considers Chinese inaction over drug flows. …The suspension of U.S. lumber was a direct response to Trump’s move on March 1 to order a trade investigation on imported lumber. 
The Trump administration has opened a broad new front in its global trade conflict, proposing to affix levies reaching $1.5 million on Chinese-made ships arriving at American ports. Such fees would apply even on vessels made elsewhere — an approach that risks increasing costs on raw materials to factory goods. …It is engineered to discourage reliance on Chinese vessels in supplying Americans with products, while aiming to spur the revival of a domestic shipbuilding industry after a half-century of veritable dormancy. …The proposal would isolate China while diminishing American reliance on its industry. …The plan was the result of an investigation, started during the Biden administration, into the dominance of the Chinese shipping industry, in response to a petition filed by labor unions. Almost one-fifth of container vessels arriving at American ports are made in China. [to access the full story a NY Times subscription is required]
BOZEMAN, Mont. – The Trump administration’s tariffs are stirring discussions in Montana, with concerns about their impact on local economies. At Montana State University, Dr. Nicole Karwowski, an assistant professor of economics … explains that while tariffs can benefit certain business and factory owners, as well as shareholders of domestic firms, the broader impact tends to be negative. She highlights that these beneficiaries gain from the increased costs international companies face when competing in the U.S. market. The local economy in Bozeman is particularly affected, Karwowski says, due to the rising cost of construction materials. “We import a lot of our timber from Canada. And housing prices are already skyrocketing in places like Bozeman especially. So the different types of construction materials and raw materials are increasing in cost because of these tariffs. Then we’re going to see it harder to be building more in places like Bozeman,” she said.
AUGUSTA, Maine — Tariffs on Canadian imports and Ottawa’s retaliation on American goods could sever—or at least strain—the close ties between the forest product industries of Maine and eastern Canada. The state exported $775 million in forest products to Canada in 2023. …Much of the wood Maine sends across the border is in the form of raw logs, according to Dana Doran of Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast. The timber goes to Canada for processing… and the finished wood products are then frequently re-imported and sold in Maine. …Doran has doubts that these tariff efforts will achieve their intended effect of boosting domestic production. “Most of those Canadian manufacturers have already invested in the United States,” Doran said. …However, others acknowledge that—even if foreign companies benefit—shifting the processing of wood back into the U.S. aligns with the White House’s protectionist aims.
NEKOOSA, Wisconsin — Partnering with Omya, a producer of essential minerals, the mill built an on-site plant to ensure a reliable source of precipitated calcium carbonate, a key papermaking ingredient. The new PCC plant came online in September 2024, solving several supply challenges. …In 2020, the PCC plant that supplied multiple Wisconsin paper mills, including Domtar’s Rothschild and Nekoosa facilities, closed. …Domtar and Omya researched constructing a four-story PCC plant at the Nekoosa mill. …In July 2022, the companies agreed to build a 27,500 dry-ton-per-year Omya-designed, owned and -operated PCC plant within the Nekoosa mill’s existing footprint. …“By executing this high-ROI, three-year project with a strategic partner, Nekoosa now has an unlimited supply of PCC on-site that allows for flexibility in our papermaking schedules and effective grade development,” says Jason McCauley, Nekoosa mill general manager.
The Southern Forest Products Association believes strong partnerships are essential for sustaining growth and success. That starts with our most valuable partnership — our members. Their commitment is the driving force behind our success. The 2024 SFPA Value Report recaps the association’s: International market development and success in driving demand for Southern Pine lumber exports; A new, consolidated website; Digital promotion efforts; Membership growth; and Industry collaboration.
The perpetually moving target of tariffs on Canadian lumber shipments to the US frustrated traders and had broad impacts on sales in many species. Despite middling demand, the threat of tariffs combined with relatively tight supplies left many prices higher for the week. The delay in announcement of preliminary AD rates by the Commerce Department injected further uncertainty. Despite inconsistent trading throughout February, the Random Lengths Framing Lumber Composite Price recorded its fourth straight increase and hit $461. That is its highest level since July 2023. Western S-P-F sales were steady but uneventful. Canadian mills weighed their responses to potential tariffs with plans ranging from adders on quoted levels to managing production and focusing sales to non-US destinations. Lumber futures were extremely volatile, swinging aggressively to every news report. The Southern Pine market was in disarray as traders processed a constant flow of mixed signals.
Home Depot’s CFO said people are “moving on” from today’s high mortgage rates and have started investing more in their homes. The home improvement company reported strong fourth-quarter results, although CEO Ted Decker said consumers are still reluctant to make larger investments like a kitchen remodel. Experts say people may start to view today’s mortgage rates as normal, especially when compared to historic rates. …“Housing is still frozen by mortgage rates,” Richard McPhail, said. Yet McPhail said Home Depot, which reported strong Q4 results Tuesday, has seen sales growth in nearly 80% of its U.S. geographic regions. …For Q4, 2024, Home Depot saw a 14.1% year-over-year increase in sales, which “exceeded our expectations,” Ted Decker CEO, said. …“We saw greater engagement in home improvement spend, despite ongoing pressure on large remodeling projects,” Decker said
The full scope of the new investigation is not yet certain. The 
President Donald Trump’s plans to use the “God Squad” and emergency provisions of the Endangered Species Act to promote widespread logging on public lands are likely illegal and little more than rhetoric without the force of law, legal experts say. …The timber order’s directives say they must comply with existing law and do not create any enforceable law, making them little more than “a lot of hot air,” said John Leshy, a former Interior solicitor in the Clinton administration in San Francisco. “It’s core could be summed up as ‘study, consider, recommend,’” Leshy said. The caveats that end the order “deprive even those exhortations of any enforceability or effect.” Murray Feldman, a partner at Holland & Hart LLP in Boise, Idaho, said the executive order is an “aspirational statement.” The order doesn’t satisfy the qualifications for an emergency under ESA regulations, the use of which is generally limited to human health risks, he said.
President Trump has promised to “drill, baby, drill.” Now, he also wants to log. 
WASHINGTON – President Trump issued an executive order that seeks to ramp up logging across federal forests. …In response to the executive order, members of the Climate Forests Coalition, including Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, Earthjustice, Oregon Wild, and WildEarth Guardians issued the following statement: “This executive order will decimate our federal forests. It will use tax dollars to line the pockets of corporate logging interests, undermine environmental laws, and take public forests out of public hands. This directive is part of a pattern to undermine science, gut the federal workforce, and privatize our public lands. Clearcutting our public lands for private profit will destroy mature and old-growth forests, pollute our air and water, and in bypassing the Endangered Species Act, actively drive vulnerable wildlife to extinction.” The order is being introduced just after a timber industry executive was appointed as the new Forest Service Chief.
After a century of wildfire suppression across the West, it’s no secret that the approach to forest management has needed to change. And change is, and has been, underway. But newly proposed changes, now in the form of legislation that would let fuel mitigation projects, including logging, in high-risk zones like the forest surrounding Durango skirt the public input process have some environmental groups up in arms. The
RAPID CITY, S.D. – South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden says during one of his several meetings with USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins last week, he and Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon had an extensive conversation about the Black Hills and timber contracts. “Just what’s at stake for the Black Hills as far as wildland fires, dangers, the insect infestations and just our timber industry and the future of that in general,” said Rhoden. Rhoden continued on saying he was “very encouraged by the conversation we had with her, that we’re going to take steps to rectify that.” Rhoden says the current amount of timber harvested is far below what is allowed. “Not even close, and under the Biden administration we were just banging our heads against the wall. We would provide the facts and the data, and they were ignored,” the governor explained. 
For over a century, the American environmental movement has been animated by an intuitive and simple idea: Protecting trees means leaving forests alone. This stance—championed by figures like John Muir—was based on the belief that any alteration, including thinning or intentional burning, of wilderness harms it. While this ideology helped prevent widespread destruction by timber companies, it also created unintended consequences. Research now shows that overgrown forests are fueling unnaturally severe wildfires, causing irreparable ecological damage and massive economic loss… A key issue remains limited funding. Budget cuts to state and federal land management agencies have reduced the resources available for proactive fire prevention… Insurance and legal concerns further complicate matters. While the need for improved wildfire mitigation is widely recognized, legislative gridlock, environmental regulations, and partisan divisions have slowed progress.
Each spring, the U.S. Forest Service hires dozens of seasonal biologists to venture into remote Northwest forests on federal land and set up acoustic recorders to monitor for sounds indicating the presence of northern spotted owls, a threatened species. There are only as many as 5,000 northern spotted owls left in the Northwest… The counting is crucial for preventing the owls’ extinction. But President Donald Trump ordered a hiring freeze that means the Forest Service cannot hire more than 40 seasonal scientists to count the owls, according to Taal Levi, an associate professor at Oregon State University who works on owl monitoring. The monitoring typically involves about 60 scientists working from central California to Canada, Levi said. It also means the agency will likely go without dozens more scientists needed to monitor threatened and endangered salmon, frogs and other fragile species…. 
…On Monday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Missoula federal district judge Donald Molloy’s rulings on a few counts that will require the Kootenai National Forest to keep the Black Ram logging project on hold for a while longer. The appeals court upheld rulings on two of four claims that the U.S. Forest Service challenged, so the agency must redo parts of its project analysis. First, the justices agreed that the Forest Service failed to comply with Kootenai Forest Plan because the agency didn’t show whether or how it included unauthorized roads in its road density calculations. …Second, the justices agreed that the Forest Service didn’t take “a hard look,” as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, at unauthorized road use and its effects. The justices pointed at the agency’s unsupported claims of sporadic use of roads and prompt barrier repair as proof.
The US Department of Agriculture revoked a federal tree-planting grant to Keep Indianapolis Beautiful in a move the nonprofit’s CEO Kranowitz said may be the result of anti-DEI initiatives coming from the Trump Administration. The money would have helped KIB plant more trees throughout the city, and those plantings should not be all the same kind of tree, Kranowitz explained. The $400,000 grant for urban forestry projects was awarded to the organization in January through the Arbor Day Foundation, but was then clawed back on Tuesday. There’s growing evidence that words like “biodiversity” are being targeted by federal agencies bent on terminating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives across the country. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins recently cancelled a federal contract in Hawaii for an agency meeting on biodiversity and has identified and canceled other training programs on environmental justice claiming they run “contrary to the values of millions of American taxpayers.”
NEW YORK — Chestnut Carbon, a leading developer of nature-based carbon removal solutions, announced today that they have completed the first issuance and sale of Improved Forest Management (IFM) credits sourced from their conservation membership program branded as Forest Carbon Works. The issuance of more than 64,000 credits, or tons of carbon removal, were sold to multiple corporate buyers, including JPMorganChase. These transactions totaled $2.2 million. Chestnut’s U.S.-based IFM membership program, Forest Carbon Works, provides an opportunity for private forest owners to access income-generating carbon markets while preserving the integrity and legacy of their land. The program includes landowners in 36 states with more than 150,000 acres enrolled as of February 2025. These carbon removal credits are certified through Verra on the voluntary carbon market (VCM) and undergo rigorous third-party audits.
A Washington timber company has been fined nearly $115,000 for child labor violations after a 17-year-old worker was injured while working in a logging operation. The Washington State Department of Labor & Industries issued the citation against MVR Timber Cutting Inc. following an investigation into the incident. The investigation began in May 2024 when L&I received a report of a workplace injury involving the teen, who fractured his foot while jumping between tree stumps. Upon learning that the minor was working as a member of the company’s logging crew, L&I expanded its investigation. …In January, L&I fined MVR Timber Cutting Inc. $56,000 for allowing the minor to work in logging operations 56 times. State regulations prohibit minors under 18 from working in jobs requiring more extensive personal protective equipment than boots, gloves, and safety glasses. Additionally, state law bans teens from working in hard hat zones, prompting L&I to issue an additional $56,000 fine for the 56 violations of that regulation.
