Kirsten Hillman
Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s longtime ambassador to the United States, is leaving her post in the new year — marking a key shakeup amid tense trade relations with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. Hillman announced the move Tuesday, saying she will “remain available” to Canada’s negotiating team as they navigate the potentially rocky period ahead. “It has been the greatest privilege of my professional life to have served and represented Canada and Canadians during this critical period in Canada-U.S. relations,” she wrote. …The lawyer helped the former Liberal government negotiate the updated North American trade agreement — now known north of the border as CUSMA. …She also served as chief negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. …Mark Wiseman is one name being considered as a replacement for Hillman, but the process hasn’t been finalized, sources told Radio-Canada. Wiseman is a member of Carney’s Canada-U.S. relations advisory council.
The negotiations that remade the North American Free Trade Agreement were, as one participant put it, a series of “near-death” experiences. …In the years since the U.S.M.C.A was signed, Mexico and Canada have become America’s top trading partners. Millions of jobs depend on this economic alliance, which exceeds $1.8 trillion in trade. …Last week, Trump suggested that he would exit the U.S.M.C.A.: “We’ll either let it expire or, well, maybe work out another deal with Mexico and Canada.” Some observers discount Trump’s bluster as mere gamesmanship. …He returned to the White House on a promise to create jobs and lower prices—to make the country “boom like we’ve never boomed before.” Instead, tariffs are fuelling inflation, and many experts believe that it is only a matter of time before the economy starts hemorrhaging jobs. …As in the previous round of negotiations, time does not appear to be on Trump’s side.
As US President Trump sticks with his campaign of tariffs on imports from Canada, some American industries are accusing Canadian competitors of using cheap materials from China in ways that violate free trade rules and undercut U.S. companies. The accusations emerged during recent public hearings in Washington into the future of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). …Luke Meisner, counsel for the American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance, told the hearings that Canada and Mexico have become conduits for products from China, circumventing the hefty countervailing duties the US imposed on Chinese-made cabinets and materials in 2020. …Over the past five years, Canada “dramatically increased” its imports of made-in-China cabinets and cabinet materials — such as plywood, medium-density fibreboard (MDF) and moulding — while at the same time boosting exports of finished cabinets to the US, Meisner said. …The Canadian Kitchen Cabinet Association defends its products as Canadian-made.
The effect of 10% tariffs on Canadian wood imports was the subject of a public hearing before the state’s Maine-Canadian Legislative Advisory Commission Wednesday. Dana Doran is executive director of the Professional Logging Contractors of the Northeast who says his members are struggling to stay afloat. “If they buy wood from Canada it’s hit by a 10% tariff on those raw logs. If they export any of their finished product they’re subject to any of the export tariffs,” Doran said. “So we’ve seen a chaotic situation that has occurred over the past 8 weeks because of the situation with tariffs.” Doran says if the U.S. had more domestic manufacturing of building and construction products it would have a bigger share of the marketplace, which could blunt tariffs. But Canada, he says, has 60% of that market.
Lumber futures traded above $550 per thousand board feet as markets absorbed a dovish turn from the Federal Reserve that brightened the demand outlook for construction materials. The Fed’s widely anticipated 25bp cut and Chair Powell’s dovish rhetoric pushed traders to price additional easing next year, which should put downward pressure on mortgage rates and lift homebuilding and renovation activity. Those interest rate dynamics have heightened the incentive for builders and distributors to restock, while persistent tariff and trade frictions have constrained supply. Canadian log exports are down year to date even as shipments into the US have risen, Canadian manufacturing output has slipped and US lumber exports are lower, a mix that reduces available millfeed and forces buyers to compete for the supplies that remain.
ATLANTA — Home Depot gave a cautious outlook for fiscal 2026 as the housing market continues to lag. Shares of the home-improvement retailer fell 2.4% to $341.62 in premarket trading on Tuesday. The company expects sales to rise between 2.5% to 4.5% in fiscal 2026, the midpoint of which is up from its guidance for 3% growth this fiscal year. Analysts polled by FactSet were looking for growth of 4.5%. …Home Depot said it expects those metrics to rise at a faster clip if the housing market gains momentum and there is increased spend on larger projects, driven by pent-up demand. The Atlanta company’s market-recovery case forecasts sales will grow about 5% to 6%, earnings per share will increase about mid- to high-single digits and comparable sales will be up 4% to 5%. “We believe that the pressures in housing will correct and provide the home improvement market with support for growth faster than the general economy”.
The US Federal Reserve is poised to deliver its third straight interest rate cut Wednesday, while simultaneously firing a warning shot about what’s ahead. Following a period of remarkable indecision about which way central bank policymakers would lean, markets have settled on a quarter-percentage point reduction. If that’s the case, it will take the Fed’s key interest rate down to a range of 3.5% to 3.75%. However, there are complications. The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee is split between members who favor cuts as a way to head off further weakness in the labor market and those who think easing has gone far enough and threatens to aggravate inflation. That’s why the term “hawkish cut” has become the buzzy term for this meeting. In market parlance, it refers to a Fed that will reduce, but deliver a message that no one should be holding their breath for the next one.
The average mortgage rate in November continued to trend lower to its lowest level in over a year. According to Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.24% in November, 2 basis points (bps) lower than in October. Meanwhile, the 15-year rate increased 3 bps to 5.51%. Both the 30-year and 15-year rates remain lower than a year ago, dropping by 57 bps and 52 bps year-over-year, respectively. …Falling mortgage rates have shown some impact on housing activity. Mortgage application activity continues to strengthen, led by increases in adjustable-rate mortgages and refinancing applications. Additionally, existing home sales rose to an eight-month high in October. There is no data available for new home sales in October due to the government shutdown.
Dr. Richard Karban, a trained ecologist and member of the UC Davis Entomology Department… who covers an array of intriguing topics, from “eavesdropping” plants to distinct plant “personalities”, is fully aware of the controversy surrounding his field. But he emphasizes that plant communication isn’t a fantasy; it is a biological response to specific cues. …Decades ago, little was known about it. Today, many researchers, such as Dr. Karban, argue that forests are highly communicative biological networks. These are sophisticated behaviors, but Karban attributes them to evolution and natural selection, not hidden sentience. He cautions against projecting human emotions onto biology, but suggests that to understand plants, we must understand their version of a “Hierarchy of Needs.” …Dr Kathryn Flinn, an ecologist at Baldwin Wallace University, believes that while mycorrhizal networks move resources, this does not mean the tree sending those resources is making a strategic or selfless decision. …Another notion gaining attention is that of a ‘Mother Tree’ recognising family members.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — 
The Trump administration’s pending deletion of the Endangered Species Act’s definition of “harm” will have an outsize impact on imperiled species in Northwest forests targeted for logging, especially the northern spotted owl, environmental attorneys say. Habitat for several species, including the threatened owl and the endangered marbled murrelet seabird, overlap with federally-managed forests in Oregon, Washington, and California, where logging is expected to increase under White House emergency orders and a new law that requires a roughly 75% increase in timber harvesting in national forests by 2034. “Without adequate, suitable places to live and reproduce, species go extinct,” said Melinda Taylor, senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. “Repealing the definition of harm would undermine almost all of the regulatory framework in place to protect endangered species.” 
A federal judge on Thursday vacated the U.S. Forest Service’s approval of a massive logging project [to harvest] about 16,500 acres of pine trees in the Custer Gallatin National Forest in southern Montana, just north of Yellowstone National Park. Senior U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula, Montana, agreed with a collective of environmental advocates that the U.S. Forest Service failed to meet the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act by relying on a condition-based management approach, which doesn’t identify the location of the 56.8 miles of temporary roads for the project and, as such, doesn’t adequately consider their impact on “secure habitat” for grizzly bears. Condition-based management defers specific decisions on how to proceed until the Forest Service has conducted field reviews. Here, it means the Forest Service has preliminarily identified areas as suitable for logging without identifying the precise location and size of the area to be cleared…
WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed two major bills for Washington state Tribes, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe Project Lands Restoration Act, and the Quinault Indian Nation Land Transfer Act. Both bills initiate the first step to return land back to the Tribes by transferring ownership from the federal government to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be held in trust for the benefit of the Tribes. [The bills were introduced into] legislation in April 2025. The bills now go to the Senate for consideration. “Today, we took an important step in upholding our treaty obligations by passing legislation to transfer land into trust for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the Quinault Indian Nation,” said Rep. Randall. “I urge my colleagues in the Senate to quickly pass these two bills to ensure we meet our trust responsibilities to restore Tribal lands.”
A new analysis making the rounds on Capitol Hill says the U.S. Forest Service sharply scaled back prescribed burns, thinning and other fuel-reduction work this year, leaving far fewer acres treated than in recent years. Through the first nine months of 2025, the agency logged under 1.7 million acres of treatments, well below the roughly four-year average that wildfire experts say is needed to protect communities and watersheds. The drop-off has Democratic senators and veteran firefighters pressing the agency for staffing numbers and a concrete plan to catch up before next fire season. As reported by Times of San Diego, the data cited by lawmakers comes from an analysis compiled by Grassroots Wildland Firefighters that compares the January-September 2025 total to a roughly 3.6 million-acre annual average from 2021-2024. Senators circulated that tally in a letter demanding detailed staffing and mitigation plans from the Forest Service.
Despite a growing chorus of conservation advocates calling on Montana’s congressional delegates to defend roadless wildlands through permanent protections, a bill to do so seems unlikely to advance without Republican support, including that of U.S. Sen. Steve Daines. A Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee on which Daines serves held a hearing Dec. 2 to consider a slate of 26 public lands and wildfire bills, among them a measure to enshrine the decades-old Roadless Rule into law. Re-introduced in June … the Roadless Area Conservation Act would protect nearly 60 million acres of national forestland. Although it has failed before, its supporters say this version comes at a pivotal moment as the Trump administration moves to roll back safeguards introduced in 2001. Hoping to capitalize on the bipartisan support that helped cleave a public land sale provision out of [the] One Big Beautiful Bill Act … conservation groups this week mounted a similar pressure campaign on Daines.
WARREN COUNTY, Pittsburgh — Local leaders and timber industry professionals are hoping for an economic boost as logging increases in the Allegheny National Forest. The timber industry has strong roots in the four counties that contain the Allegheny National Forest: Elk, Forest, McKean, and Warren. With fewer than 150,000 residents, it’s a small enough region where almost everyone knows everyone else in the business. …“If you’re somebody who lives here, almost everybody is touched in some way by the timber industry,” said Julia McCray, at the Allegheny Forest Alliance, a coalition dedicated to the national forest’s health that includes local officials and people from the timber industry. As logging expands on federal lands amid a Trump administration push for more timber, the effects could be felt for years to come — in the forest and beyond. A single logging operation relies on a multi-step chain of work that employs many.
The Family Forest Carbon Program pays landowners not to timber their trees, then sells the additional growth as carbon credits. But critics question whether it leads to overall emissions reductions. David Funk has spent decades working to restore the native forest ecosystems of southeast Ohio. Now, he’s finally getting paid for it—through a carbon credit program. “The Nature Conservancy reached out and knew that I was very active in the preservation of woodlands in southeastern Ohio,” Funk said. “It was just a perfect fit for what we do.” That’s why Funk was eager to become the first Ohio member of the Family Forest Carbon Program. An initiative of the American Forest Foundation and the Nature Conservancy, the FFCP pays private landowners not to timber the forests on their properties for 20 years. It also provides free consultations with forest managers to facilitate whatever goals landowners may have for their woods—hunting, hiking, even sustainable harvesting.