US tariffs on industrial sectors are now not expected April 2, but reciprocal levies on nations with trade imbalances are. In related news: Part II of a Tree Frog Special on Trump’s Re-emergence and Political Risk in the Canadian Forest Sector; Alberta council urges province to support its forest industry; and a US columnist says Canada stands accused of… subsiding Americans. Meanwhile: US remodelling soars but struggles to find labor; and Gene Wengert, the infamous Wood Doctor, has died at 82.
In Forestry/Wildfire News: Canada invests in wildfire training; whitebark pine restoration makes progress in BC and Alberta; ENGOs call for more conservation in BC; and US tree planting is cut due to DEI measures. Meanwhile: a new UK report on mass timber benefits; and Canfor partners in pursuit of formaldehyde-free wood adhesives.
Finally, Amazon faces a greenwashing lawsuit; while a Georgia jury fines Monsanto $2B.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
As a federal election kicks off, the trade war with the US is casting a long shadow over voters’ choices, and whoever forms the next government will have the tall order of trying to draw this conflict to a close. …International trade experts say that will be much easier said than done. The two economies are more integrated than ever before, and President Donald Trump’s chaotic governing style makes it extremely difficult to know how to even begin to unravel this dispute. …Carney met with the country’s premiers and leaders from long-time allies in other countries to chart a short- and long-term response to the tariffs. He has conceded there’s a limit to how much Canada can do to respond. …Russell Williams at Memorial University said because Trump keeps threatening Canada’s existence, a political, rhetorical de-escalation is essential before any compromise on trade can be reached. 
Yesterday, we featured Part II of our in-depth Q&A with political risk expert Robert McKellar, a follow-up to an August 
Canada could be on the lower end of Trump’s threatened global tariffs next week, the Star has learned. Nothing, however, is guaranteed until Trump decides ahead of his April 2 deadline and no government officials are taking any assurances for granted, sources said. …Canadian sources with knowledge of discussions between the two countries say White House officials have suggested Trump may impose three escalating levels of tariffs on America’s trading partners, with Canada getting hit on the lower end of the scale. …Despite a recent news report the tiered-approach is not on the table, the sources said it aligns with the government’s understanding of what’s about to hit next week. Flavio Volpe, head of the Canadian Auto Parts Manufacturers Association, said, “I wouldn’t take any comfort from that… it may just be that some other countries have been levied a higher universal tariff”.
President Trump appeared to invent a new economic statecraft tactic by threatening what he dubbed “secondary tariffs” on countries that buy oil from Venezuela to choke off its oil trade with other nations. The threat… said countries could face 25% tariffs on trade with the US if they purchase oil and gas from Venezuela, which is already under heavy US sanctions. …The novel approach adds to a growing list of tools that Trump has been eager to deploy as leverage in achieving its foreign and domestic policy goals. …With the threat, Trump appeared to be inventing a combination of tariffs and what are known as secondary sanctions, the financial punishments that can be imposed on other countries or people for doing business with sanctioned entities. …“China is the main actor this is directed at because it’s essentially the black market for Venezuelan oil,” Monaldi said.
In seeking to justify his imbecilic trade war against Canada, Donald Trump 
Flatbed trucking rates have surged over the past month as steel and lumber shippers hurry to stockpile inventory amid tariff whiplash threatening to roil their supply chains, experts say. A six-week increase in rates has led to the highest flatbed pricing to start a year since 2017, according to DAT, as freight repositioning combines with a typical seasonal pickup in construction and other industries. “Demand usually picks up in March and April as planti ng, building, construction, machinery imports, and nursery seasons gear up,” said DAT Principal Analyst Dean Croke. “…Last week, the average flatbed spot rate went up 4 cents to $2.13 per mile compared to the previous week. Meanwhile, the load-to-truck ratio for flatbed went up to 46.92 from 41.12 loads per truck.Shippers have pulled forward cargo imports such as machinery, lumber, metals and oversized flatbed freight to mitigate tariff uncertainty. 
Economic optimism among chief financial officers dropped in the first quarter of 2025 amid concerns about tariffs and broader economic uncertainty, according to the CFO Survey, a collaboration of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta. The economic optimism index fell from 66.0 in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 62.1 in the first quarter of 2025, almost erasing gains from a post-election jump. CFOs’ optimism about their own firm’s financial prospects also dipped. …In addition, “uncertainty” was in the top five respondent concerns. …Some firms focused on the uncertainty around tariff policy. “Lumber tariffs … could help or hurt our company,” one said. “Unpredictability … makes it very difficult to plan as a business.” …About a quarter of firms reported that changes to trade policy would negatively impact their hiring and their capital spending plans in 2025. On the sourcing side, almost 30 percent of firms planned to diversify supply chains.
Contractors are bracing for a new wave of tariffs set to take effect April 2, this time on certain material imported from Canada and Mexico — such as steel, aluminum and lumber. Though reports indicate the Trump administration could roll back the ultimate scope of this action, contractors say just the threat of tariffs can have an immediate impact on material costs. That’s why that looming deadline on Canadian and Mexican imports has already sparked concern across the construction industry, particularly around reinforcing and structural steel, curtainwall systems and Canadian lumber, said Steve Stouthamer, executive VP Skanska USA Building. Stouthamer talks about the materials most at risk, tariffs’ impact on budgets and negotiations and steps contractors can take to minimize financial exposure. …The Trump administration has indicated Canadian lumber will be included in the reciprocal tariffs. Lumber has already seen a significant increase, 10% to 15% in cost, in anticipation of this tariff.
BEIJING — UBS analysts became the latest to raise expectations that China’s struggling real estate market is close to stabilizing. “After four or five years of a downward cycle, we have begun to see some relatively positive signals,” John Lam at UBS Investment Bank. …“Of course these signals aren’t nationwide, and may be local,” Lam said. One indicator is improving sales in China’s largest cities. Existing home sales in five major Chinese cities have climbed by more than 30% from a year ago on a weekly basis as of Wednesday. The category is typically called “secondary home sales” in China, in contrast to the primary market, which has typically consisted of newly built apartment homes. UBS now predicts China’s home prices can stabilize in early 2026, earlier than the mid-2026 timeframe previously forecast. They expect secondary transactions could reach half of the total by 2026.
OTTAWA — The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson announced a $16.3 million investment over the next three years, starting in 2024–25, to support 25 projects through the Government of Canada’s Fighting and Managing Wildfires in a Changing Climate Program (FMWCC) – Training Fund. Through this investment, over 2,800 youth and community members in remote, rural and Indigenous communities across Canada will receive wildland firefighting training to enhance community capacity for responding to and managing wildfires. …Some of the projects funded through the FMWCC Training Fund include: $329,109 to the Keewaytinook Okimakanak’s project in Thunder Bay, Ontario… $499,330 to the Metis Settlements General Council’s project in Edmonton, Alberta… $946,330 to Prince Albert Development Corporation Management Co. Ltd.’s project in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan… and $1,999,999 to the Independent First Nations Alliance’s (IFNA) project in Sioux Lookout, Ontario.
Prolonged droughts, wildfires and water shortages. Torrential downpours that overwhelm dams and cause catastrophic flooding. Around the globe, rising temperatures stoked by climate change are increasing the odds of both severe drought and heavier precipitation that wreak havoc on people and the environment. Rainfall can disappear for years only to return with a vengeance, as it did in California in 2023, with record-setting rain and snowfall. That led to heavy vegetation growth that provided fuel for the devastating January wildfires in Los Angeles after drought returned. But how can global warming cause both drier and wetter extremes? Here’s what experts say. It’s all about the water cycle. Water constantly moves between the Earth and its atmosphere. But that system — called the hydrological cycle — is speeding up as global temperatures get hotter, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal and gas.
Apologies are in order if anyone blamed it on the dog. The Kruger pulp mill on Mission Flats Road says it is responsible for what some might have noticed was a stronger than usual odour in the air in Kamloops late Friday afternoon. According to Kruger spokesperson Paule Veilleux-Turcotte, the smell was the result of a failure in the mill’s odour control equipment. “The plant halted its operations to repair the equipment, but, despite shutting down, some residual levels of the gases would still have been noticeable within the community,” Veilleux-Turcotte said in an email to Castanet Kamloops. “Despite the equipment issues, operations remained in compliance with the site permit for the duration of the event.” Veilleux-Turcotte said the issue was fixed by about 10 p.m. on Friday night, and, upon confirmation of the repairs, the mill resumed operations. [END]
Oregon firefighters arrived Sunday in North Carolina to assist in fighting wildfires that have burned thousands of acres in the western part of the state. The Oregon Department of Forestry sent 26 firefighters and two agency representatives for a two-week rotation in North Carolina. Many of the Oregon firefighters were assigned to the Black Cove Fire. The fire was first reported March 19. The Black Cove Fire in North Carolina’s Polk County has forced evacuations and is one of the largest in the western part of the state. Along with the Deep Woods Fire, burning in the Green River Gorge, a combined 4,621 acres were burning with 0% containment as of Sunday evening, according to the North Carolina Forest Service. …The firefighters were sent under a mutual assistance agreement between Oregon and North Carolina.
Wildfires forced a mandatory evacuation Sunday in a North Carolina county still recovering from Hurricane Helene, and South Carolina’s governor declared an emergency in response to a growing wildfire in that state. Hundreds of miles north, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service was battling a blaze in the Wharton State Forest. The North Carolina Department of Public Safety announced a mandatory evacuation starting at 8:20 p.m. Saturday for parts of Polk County in western North Carolina about 80 miles west of Charlotte. A shelter had been established in Columbus, North Carolina. …Also this weekend, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service has been battling a wildfire that broke out in the Wharton State Forest on Saturday. The fire had consumed about 2.7 square miles as of early Sunday morning and was about 50% contained, according to an 8 a.m. update.