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]
European negotiators agreed late on Tuesday to implement the controversial trade agreement concluded last summer with the US. However, the deal — signed in the Scottish city of Turnberry — remains fragile as long as US President Donald Trump continues to use tariffs as a tool of political pressure. Diplomats and MEPs reached an agreement late on Tuesday to implement the contentious EU-US agreement, which eliminates duties on most US industrial goods imported into Europe. …The so-called “Turnberry Agreement,” criticised by MEPs as unbalanced, raises US tariffs on EU goods to as much as 15%. …In the final compromise text, the Commission would be able to suspend the trade agreement — at the request of either Parliament or a member state — if the US fails to lift tariffs on European steel and aluminium products by the end of 2026.
KINGSPORT, Tennessee — Domtar Paper has filed a response to 
Framing lumber sales were slow to get started after the long holiday weekend in the US in most markets. Many buyers paused early to assess market conditions – especially prospects for shipping any new orders – before resuming moderate replenishment as the week progressed. Prices shifted modestly. Recent trends in sales of western S-P-F were little changed. Discounts grew increasingly tougher for buyers to procure as order files lengthened and mills cleared existing accumulations. …Lumber futures were little changed week to date, with the front month trading near par with the cash market in most deliverable species. …Southern pine mill sales outpaced producers’ ability to ship the loads, and backlogs of sold lumber continued to accumulate throughout the distribution pipeline. Prices shifted mildly with sales frequently reported on both sides of last week’s reported levels. …In the Inland market, prices were predominantly flat, or mildly higher in a few cases.
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. 
Lumber futures have been trading below $600 per thousand board feet since early April, as weaker consumer sentiment and uncertainty surrounding developments in the Middle East weigh on demand. At the same time, supply constraints in several regions have partially offset the decline in demand. Profitability for Canadian mills remains under pressure from elevated duties and tariffs. The US has recently outlined preliminary antidumping and countervailing duties on Canadian softwood lumber, with the antidumping rate reduced from 20.6% to 10.7% and the countervailing duty trimmed from 14.6% to 14.2%, bringing the combined rate to about 25.9%. Including an existing 10% Section 232 tariff, total effective duties on Canadian imports are expected to remain near 35.9% once they take effect in August. Despite these measures aimed at supporting domestic producers, US sawmill utilisation remains relatively weak at around 64%, with capacity use trending lower since 2017.
Mortgage rates this week rose to the highest level since August, more bad news for home shoppers during what is usually the busiest time of the year for home sales. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 6.51% this week, from 6.36% last week, 
US housing starts declined in April as construction of single-family homes dropped by the most in nearly a year, suggesting builders are growing cautious amid higher mortgage rates. New residential construction decreased 2.8% last month to an annualised rate of 1.47 million homes, according to government figures released on Thursday. Starts of single-family homes declined 9%, the most since August, to an annualised 930,000 pace. Multifamily housing starts, however, rose more than 10% to the highest level since May 2023. The report also showed single-family permits, a leading indicator of future construction, fell 2.6% to the lowest level since August. The figures suggest home builders remain focused on working off a still-elevated inventory of new properties. …Numerous challenges remain for a sustained pickup in home building, including rising mortgage rates, flagging consumer confidence and stretched household budgets.
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.
Wood is in most buildings you enter. But how do you know it’s safe? “The work we do at the Forest Products Laboratory is important for everybody’s everyday lives in terms of the buildings we live in, work in, and play in,” said Forest Products Laboratory materials research engineer Laura Hasburgh. Wood may be present in the structural part of the building, such as the wall or ceiling framing. Wood is also used for interior finishes, like trim, doors, furniture and cabinetry. That’s why the safety and durability of wood products are important for everyone—from the businesses making the products to the people using them. However, testing wood materials for durability and resistance to moisture, weight, and fire is largely unaffordable for industry and universities. The Forest Service’s 
U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) encouraged the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to tackle the nation’s housing affordability crisis by helping make mass timber a more mainstream building material. Mass timber usage was one issue discussed at a Senate Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations Subcommittee hearing chaired by Hyde-Smith to review the FY2027 HUD budget request. …Hyde-Smith sought HUD Secretary Scott Turner’s commitment to engage with the U.S. Forest Service, state forest commissions, research universities, and builders to incorporate mass timber in home construction as one means to tackle housing affordability. …”Mass timber multifamily housing is demonstrating an ability to lower construction costs and reduce the time it takes to build, which makes it an ideal approach for helping increase affordable housing production,” Hyde-Smith said. 
WASHINGTON, D.C. and OTTAWA, ON — The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), along with others worldwide, shares the commitment to ensuring the health and resilience of forests. The European Union has identified the 
Despite budget cuts and extensive restructuring, the US Forest Service says it is ready to support Canada with any requests for wildfire assistance. The British Columbia Wildfire Service is also prepared to do the same, irrespective of strained trade relations, said BC Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar, who is responsible for the province’s wildfire service. …”Let me be very clear when it comes to fighting fires, we will always be there to support Americans in their time of need.” Parmar said that despite strained trade relations, he expects Americans will respond if called upon for support. …The US and Canada have a long history of supporting one another during difficult fire seasons, but this year the US Forest Service is facing budget cuts and restructuring. …”Any budget changes do not affect our firefighting capacity or limit our ability to provide support under our long-standing agreements,” the US Forest Service said.
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.
The Forest Service is withholding tens of millions of dollars in wildfire and forestry assistance from states that haven’t signed onto Trump administration directives prohibiting diversity initiatives and climate change programs. As weather forecasters predict an especially severe wildfire season, the Forest Service is in talks with Western states about the holdup on the wildfire mitigation grants and cooperative agreements on forest management, according to state and federal officials. …The new requirements are a particular problem with Democratic-led states, which won’t sign onto the new requirements, in some cases because state laws conflict with the restrictions like the ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. But forestry leaders in Idaho have also raised concerns, saying requirements to make sure subcontractors are also following the Trump directives put an undue burden on states. [to access the full story an E&E News subscription is required]
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.
AccuWeather has released its latest outlook on what Oregon could expect for the 2026 fire season, forecasting another active year for wildfires for much of the western half of America. Experts said that 2026 may see fewer fires overall, however, drought conditions, dry vegetation and extreme heat are likely to cause fires to spread more quickly and grow larger before crews are able to contain them, resulting in more land burned. According to the company’s newly released wildfire forecast, between 65,000 and 80,000 wildfires are expected nationwide this year, burning an estimated 5.5 million to 8 million acres. That compares to 77,850 fires that burned 5.1 million acres in 2025. …Forecasters said the highest wildfire risk this year is expected across the Southwest, Rockies, Great Basin and Interior Northwest, including parts of Oregon and Washington. AccuWeather meteorologists said drought and prolonged heat are continuing to intensify wildfire conditions across much of the west.
Colorado’s top forest health concern is a mountain pine beetle outbreak on the Front Range that has expanded by nearly 150% from 2024 to 2025, according to a Colorado State Forest Service report. The report shows the continued spread of mountain pine beetles and other forest insects during the second consecutive year of above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation. Trees in forests across Colorado are stressed following a record warm winter and low snowpack, and infestations of bark beetles and western spruce budworm are expected to intensify and expand. “Heat and drought are stressing our forests, turning many areas into tinderboxes and making it harder for trees to fight off bark beetles and other insects,” said Matt McCombs, state forester and director of the CSFS. …Trees killed by drought, insects or disease can potentially alter wildfire behavior should there be ignition from lightning or other sources. 
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.
The Trump administration is drastically cutting the budget, and reorganizing the U.S. Forest Service, moving its headquarters and research facilities to western states. In Pennsylvania, four research sites are on the chopping block. As forest ecologist Richard Bowden walks through an old growth section of the Allegheny National Forest, he points toward the ground. It’s barren of young trees. “There’s nothing,” said Bowden, a professor of environmental science and sustainability at nearby Allegheny College. “And that’s because of deer.” Deer overpopulated this area, called Heart’s Content, and much of the Allegheny Plateau, for decades; they eat whatever vegetation they can reach. …While the ideas behind this deer management demonstration might seem simple, it’s taken decades of research to understand the problem, and do the work to actually keep the deer population in balance with the forest. 
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.
MAINE — According to the Fire Marshal’s Office, multiple departments sustained damage to their fire trucks and equipment during the Searsmont incident, impacting departments that are already limited on resources. “Seeing the ploom of black smoke, it immediately puts a lump in your throat,” said Belmont Fire Chief Ron Harford, as he reflected on Friday’s fire and explosion at Robbins Lumber. In the aftermath of the Searsmont fire, the Belmont Fire Department is supporting injured firefighter Katherine Paige and navigating the loss of a critical tank truck. …”Searsmont’s going to be hugely affected because they’ve lost two of their immediate mutual aid town’s trucks, plus their tank truck,” said Harford. On top of that, Chief Harford says the department lost between $50 to $60 thousand worth of equipment that was on the truck. …”Mr. Cross [Fallen Firefighter Andrew Cross] is our biggest loss. He was a tremendous firefighter a tremendous person,” said Harford.