Tree Frog Editor: This insight paper by political risk analyst Robert McKellar offers a strategic lens on how a second Trump administration is shaping US behaviour as a global actor — an issue with direct implications for trade-exposed sectors. McKellar is a founding partner at Harmattan Risk and the co-author of “Trump’s Second Term: Political Risk and the Forest Products Sector,” an analysis of US trade policy, tariff dynamics, and geopolitical uncertainty. In this paper, he steps back from industry-specific analysis to explore the broader strategic logic — and contradictions — underlying current US global behaviour, providing context for the policy volatility and trade uncertainty facing the sector.
Robert McKellar
The US, a lynchpin global player, has become a change bomb, and having a clear sense of the US as an agent on the world stage is critical to sense-making that can inform appropriate strategic responses. But as it stands, Trump, whose character shapes his administration, is a wildcard. He is seemingly bored to tears by stability in any issue he deals with, and bored by a set menu of priorities. …Do we resign ourselves to perpetually playing catch up with US moves and their reverberations, or is it possible to get ahead of the Trumpian storm with a reasonably accurate sketch of the US as a global actor? If its moves were guided by strategic rationality, we would be able to extrapolate some idea of its future behaviour, and even a sense of how the international system might look in a few years and the critical challenges any given state might present…
Seasoned observers of US politics and international behaviour might have foreseen some of what is happening now, but by and large they did not expect Godzilla. Thus, they have often latched onto their own predispositions to fill in the considerable blanks. This has, for the most part, yielded two poles of interpretation. One is that Trump and his team are acting on a strategic assessment, and that despite apparent mayhem their moves are rational, even coldly calculating. The other is that the US has succumbed to the baser aspects of personal rule. Thus, Trump’s eccentric character and ego are the main source of US global behaviour. …The emerging reality no doubt lies somewhere in between, but to triangulate to an approximation, we need to prod around both poles of interpretation.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Mark Carney and the premiers said Thursday they’re maintaining a united front under the long shadow of the upcoming negotiations for the review of North America’s key free trade agreement. …Carney updated the premiers on Ottawa’s plans for the coming review and committed to monthly meetings to update the premiers once CUSMA review talks officially begin. But Carney was tight-lipped on trade strategy. …In the meantime, Trump’s sector-specific tariffs continue to damage key Canadian industries such as steel, aluminum and softwood lumber. New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt said she wasn’t seeing a lot of US “movement or interest” in resolving the softwood lumber dispute, meaning a deal on duties outside of the CUSMA review process is unlikely. “We are constantly looking at ways to make it clear to the U.S. administration how the U.S. lumber producers are suffering under a low price,” Holt said.
Canada’s forest industry is being dismantled in plain sight. …For decades, Canada built its forest economy around a single export market and a narrow set of commodity products. That strategy has now been exposed as dangerously fragile. Our closest trading partner has proven unreliable, and the cost of over-dependence is being paid by rural workers and regions across the country. Canada does not have a forestry problem. We have a market diversification problem. Ironically, today’s global uncertainty has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity. …Capital is mobile, and companies are actively looking for stable jurisdictions in which to build new production facilities. Canada can and should be at the top of that list—but we need to build the foundational infrastructure to make this happen. …The federal government’s new Canadian Forest Sector Transformation Task Force opens a critical window to address structural weaknesses in Canada’s forest economy. 
The unravelling of our trade relationship with the US compels us to act decisively. The chaotic diplomacy of the Trump Administration should encourage Canada to build up economic capacity where Canadians possess both agency and an existing industrial base to rely upon. This capacity‑building goal dovetails with the inherent purpose of the Sustainable Jobs Action Plan (SJAP). …Acting on these priorities, industry can direct its capital and follow its own strategic objectives, but it will do so in an environment that better reflects Canada’s long‑term economic goals. The SJAP can play a pivotal role. …One can look to the forestry sector. …Forestry faces an existential crisis from the 45% U.S. duties and tariffs imposed on Canadian lumber. …However, the sector also holds immense potential for manufacturing a variety of high value‑added products while also being a renewable resource key to decarbonizing construction.
Canada’s housing and homelessness crisis touches nearly every Canadian. Over the past decade, while federal housing spending has increased, affordability has worsened for all but the wealthiest, and homelessness is surging. Despite recent declines in housing prices and rents, unsheltered homelessness is still up 300% since 2018, according to the most recent national point-in-time count. The country has a narrow but historic window to tackle this crisis and rebuild our housing system so it delivers at the speed, scale and affordability this moment demands. …Federal action alone won’t get us there. Provinces and territories control the planning systems, development-charge frameworks, zoning rules, supportive housing, health services and income supports. …That is why we need a Canada Housing Accord. [Tim Richter is the chief executive of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness and Tyler Meredith is a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy]
RUSS TAYLOR provided the latest quarterly report from the 
In the construction industry, ideas or materials first seen on the margins of construction processes later become an established part of those processes. …And so it seems to be with Mass Timber Construction (MTC). MTC entered the construction industry as an intriguing approach to reduce embodied carbon. …Today, MTC has become a mainstream building method. Across North America, there are reportedly 2,500 MTC buildings already built or in the planning stages. Similar levels of acceptance are seen in Europe. The world’s leading architects and designers have embraced MTC by incorporating wood components into a wide range of building types and sizes, from commercial offices to housing, campuses, infrastructure and even data centres. Interest and acceptance have moved beyond the pure environmental benefits of using MTC. Economics, simple dollars and cents, are now recognized as a persuasive factor as well. This is because mass timber changes the mechanics of construction.
NEW BRUNSWICK — J.D. Irving approached a number of municipalities last fall, asking them to support its request to be able to log 32,000 hectares of protected areas on its Crown timber licence in exchange for conserving forest near those communities. At least nine municipalities signed a letter asking that Natural Resources Minister John Herron “give equal weight to the social and economic interests of local governments when seeking to balance the interests of multiple stakeholders across New Brunswick.” …Conservation groups, including the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, said the proposal is extremely concerning. Roberta Clowater questioned why protected areas would be treated as “a wood bank for industry.” …The proposal is in response to the government’s promise to increase conservation lands from 10% to 15% of the province’s landmass. That would mean protecting an additional 360,000 hectares, which the province hopes to source from a mixture of Crown and private land.
ALASKA — The US Forest Service is moving forward with a plan to harvest over 5,000 acres of trees in the Tongass National Forest, just east of Ketchikan. A majority of that will be old-growth trees, which some people worry will be devastating to the forest. The Forest Service released the 
Oregon’s forestry department has proposed a flexible approach to managing state-owned forests west of the Cascades over the next 70 years. Staff say it will allow them to adapt as scientific understanding evolves — and as the climate changes. But environmental groups say the department has drafted a plan that’s too vague. They would like to see more focus on saving the mature and complex forests. Members of the public can 
PITTSBURG, New Hampshire — The state has reached a deal on the management of the Connecticut Lakes Headwaters Working Forest, a 146,000 acre property constituting 3% of New Hampshire’s forests, according to Gov. Kelly Ayotte. The forest is privately owned but is under a conservation easement, which means the state has oversight regarding how the land is managed and can ensure it remains a working timberland. Since the land was purchased in 2022 by an out-of-state carbon offset company, Aurora Sustainable Lands, local loggers have raised concerns about reduced timber harvesting on the property. As a carbon-offset company, Aurora curbed logging in order to sell the carbon they stored. …In the plan agreed upon last month, Aurora will increase the average annual timber harvest. …“The Connecticut Lakes Headwaters Working Forest is critical to recreation, tourism and the timber industry in our North Country,” Ayotte said.
Ingka Investments, the investment arm of Ingka Group (IKEA’s largest retailer), has completed the acquisition of forestland from Södra in Latvia and Estonia, following the signing of the agreement announced in October 2025. The transaction is part of Ingka Investments’ strategy to invest in long‑term assets that combine financial resilience with positive impact for the Ingka Group and IKEA business, building a strong foundation for many generations to come. With the acquisition now completed, Ingka Investments will take on the role of long‑term forest owner, with the ambition to manage the forest in a responsible way, while contributing to local economic activity. …Total area included in the acquisition is 135,232 ha in Latvia, and 17,742 ha in Estonia. The purchase price of the asset was EUR 720 million. …With IKEA retail operations in 32 markets, Ingka Group is the largest IKEA retailer and represents 87% of IKEA retail sales.
UK energy company Drax’s ambitions of becoming a significant wood pellet supplier to Asia are in danger of faltering as Japanese policymakers wind back generous subsidies for the biomass sector. Japan is set to soon surpass the UK as the world’s largest wood pellet importer after a post-Fukushima push to diversify power sources that caused hundreds of plants to spring up that burn wood pellets, palm kernel shells — a palm oil byproduct — and other organic materials. But policymakers in Japan are pulling support for the controversial industry after realising the hurdles to bringing down fuel costs. Tokyo has already cut subsidies for new projects of more than 10 megawatts. “The real intention is quite simple: no new government support, phasing out. We don’t see any clear path of bringing down costs in the foreseeable future,” said one government official. “Existing projects might survive but no new projects are coming.”
