OTTAWA — The federal government is replacing its counter-tariffs on seafood with 50% levies on a series of other American goods, according to Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s office. …The decision to remove seafood from Canada’s list of counter-tariffs was made in part to avoid giving the appearance of escalation by Canada in the face of a simmering trade conflict with the United States, as the U.S. does not tariff Canadian seafood imports. Newly added to Canada’s list of counter-tariffs include: Wood charcoal; Printed matter, including printed pictures or photographs; Articles of plaster or of compositions based on plaster, including boards, sheets and tiles; Materials used in the conveyance or packing of goods, including bottles, flasks, jars and pots; And copper wire. On Tuesday, the federal government laid out its plan for countermeasures in the ongoing trade war, and announced a $7.5-billion support package for workers and businesses.
Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc says Canada “welcomes” the US “withdrawing” its positions on the French language and culture after US Trade Rep. Greer said Canada’s streaming laws are not a “red line” for the American side. “Canada welcomes that the US is now withdrawing its positions on discoverability and labelling and is confirming that measures to promote French language and Canadian culture will not be subject to future US trade actions,” LeBlanc said. …In a Canadian exclusive interview, Jamieson Greer disputed Canada’s explanation about why trade talks fell apart, and said there’s currently no ‘open channels’ to get both sides back to the negotiating table. …In an interview that aired Wednesday evening, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer appeared to modify the U.S. position on culture and language. …The Americans’ modified position comes two days after Canada announced its own dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs on more than 700 different U.S. imports.
More than 20 lumber mills closed across B.C. over the last three years. Billions in wood products affected by U.S. tariffs. Tens of thousands of jobs lost in Canada. …While there are many factors driving the decline, recent U.S. tariffs haven’t helped. But Donald Trump is hardly the first U.S. president whose government has imposed steep duties on Canadian lumber. The tariffs are the latest chapter in a dispute that’s been going on for more than four decades. …It boils down to differences in how much Canadian and American producers have to pay for access to wood, according to 
Barton: You know, it was just a week ago, incredibly, that you and your counterpart, Dominic LeBlanc, shook hands outside, seemed pretty confident that there was a deal to be had. From your perspective, what happened that caused the talks to collapse?
WASHINGTON — The US and Canada have 
First Nations are grappling with uncertainty and bracing for impact as the Canada-U.S. trade war escalates, with steep tariffs taking effect on some business sectors. … British Columbia faces the highest consequences to the new 50 per cent tariffs on certain goods, causing concern among First Nations in the province that are involved in forestry. John Jack, elected chief councillor of the Huu-ay-aht First Nations on Vancouver Island, said they are “potentially deeply impacted due to our heavy investment in the forestry industry.” Those investments include its own company, HFN Forestry Limited, a 35-per-cent partnership with Western Forest Products on nearly 137,000 hectares of forest, and Iskum Investments, a First Nations consortium looking at building a second-growth focused mill. …Dallas Smith, president of the Nanwakolas Council, which represents six First Nations on northern Vancouver Island, said the new tariffs would greatly affect its investments in forestry. 
Using the bathroom or having a cry is about to become more expensive for North Americans as the 
The Domtar paper mill on the Port Alberni waterfront is the area’s biggest employer, with 350 people making specialized food packaging and food-grade papers. But in the light of a new round of 50% tariffs levied by US President Trump, Port Alberni Mayor Sharie Minions is worried about the future of those jobs. …In 2020, Domtar spent $13 million to switch production primarily to the food packaging grade paper, an important diversification at the time, but it’s unclear how much of it goes to the U.S. and would be subject to the new tariffs. …Industry analyst David Elstone says the entire BC forestry sector will be hit hard and it comes right after Domtar closed other mills, including at Crofton and Howe Sound. …”A billion dollars worth of BC wood products will now be subject to the new tariffs, including plywood, veneer, paper and packaging products, furniture, MDF and doors. And that’s what these tariffs go after: these value-added products,” said Elstone. 
TORONTO – United Steelworkers union (USW) National Director Marty Warren issued the following statement on the suspension of Canada-U.S. trade negotiations and the imposition of new 50% U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods: “Canada was right to hold the line rather than accept a deal that did not adequately protect Canadian workers, jobs and communities. We have said throughout these negotiations that no deal is better than a bad deal. The terms being discussed – including significant tariffs and restrictive quotas on Canadian steel and barriers across other key sectors – raised serious concerns for Canadian workers and industries. The new needless 50% tariffs coming into force today will have real consequences for workers, businesses and communities on both sides of the border. We support the government’s commitment to respond dollar for dollar, but retaliation alone is not enough. Ottawa must move quickly to support affected workers and industries. 
A Richmond plywood manufacturer is concerned about what Wednesday is going to bring for his business. Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc met with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as officials race against the clock to secure a new trade deal before new 50% tariffs take effect Wednesday. …“A 50 per cent tariff is not a margin we can absorb, nor is it something US customers will be willing to pay,” Bhavjit Thandi, CFO of Richmond Plywood, said. …So far, the BC premier is reluctant to make any concessions such as returning US alcohol to BC shelves without tariff relief for key industries such as forestry. But the Americans have not been interested in discussing softwood lumber. “The softwood lumber sector is bigger than auto parts and steel combined in terms of the Canadian economy and it needs to be front and centre at the table,” Eby said on Friday.
Bryan Yu, chief economist for Central 1 Credit Union, had no sooner completed a grim economic prognosis of B.C.’s ailing forest economy when, as if to punctuate the point, Domtar announced it would indefinitely idle its Howe Sound pulp mill in Port Mellon on Aug. 20. He said it was an “unhappy coincidence” that the announced pulp mill closure just happened to be announced the day before Central 1 published its economic commentary, which describes B.C. forest economy reaching the “breaking point.” The mill’s closure will result in about 400 workers losing their jobs. Domtar (formerly Paper Excellence) gave no date for when the mill will shut down. But if it is before the end of this year, that will mean three major pulp mills in B.C. will have shut down in B.C. in a single year. …The Council of Forest Industries (COFI) estimates 21 mills, mostly sawmills, have shut down in B.C. since 2023. 
It’s a dynamic moment in time for Nanaimo’s Harmac Pacific pulp mill and the whole coastal forest industry, according to CEO Paul Sandler. Sadler said that the new American 50% tariffs… are not directly impacting Harmac’s operations at this time, but the tariffs’ likely repercussions on the coastal saw and lumber mills… are very worrying. Harmac requires a significant amount of wood chips to produce its high-value kraft pulp that is used globally for tissue, packaging and paper production. …But Sadler said, the biggest news for the forest industry on the B.C. coast recently was the indefinite closure of Domtar’s Howe Sound pulp and paper mill on the Sunshine Coast. …“We need more pulp capacity on the coast to meet the demand than Harmac and the pulp operation in Port Alberni can provide. …Sadler said it’s vitally important that the region’s sawmills get back to operating at full capacity.
VANCOUVER — A leader in BC’s forestry sector is voicing support for Prime Minister Carney’s decision to walk away from trade talks with the US despite reported concessions on lumber tariffs in a scuttled deal. Kim Haakstad, president of COFI, says the breakdown of talks will create challenges for her sector, but Ottawa had to walk away if negotiators couldn’t secure a deal that worked for Canadians broadly. …BC Premier David Eby said that he understood some progress had been made in addressing the long-standing softwood lumber dispute during the most recent talks and it was “disappointing” to see that fail to materialize. …Haakstad called for measures including reducing regulatory restrictions to allow quicker access to BC lumber for a more competitive product on the global market. …She said Ottawa could also help by addressing rail transport costs, a significant barrier for Canadian lumber producers looking to sell products domestically.
Local officials and an operator are remaining hopeful over the future of the two remaining pulp mills on Vancouver Island, despite recent mill closures and new U.S. tariffs. B.C.’s critical forestry industry is among those that are likely to take a major hit due to the incoming 50 per cent tariffs on certain Canadian goods — with the new duties targeting some Canadian pulp and paper products specifically. But Nanaimo Forest Products, which operates the Harmac Pacific Pulp Mill, says most of its specialty wood products have been spared by tariffs and are mostly exported to markets in Asia. “We’re highly focused on exporting our products overseas into places like Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, even Australia,” said Harmac CEO and general manager Paul Sadler. Harmac produces northern bleached softwood kraft (NBSK) pulp, which Sadler says is common throughout British Columbia, often used for making tissues and paper towels.
Late Thursday, Tolko issued a statement addressing reports that its Heffley Creek veneer facility was facing an indefinite curtailment. “We are aware of reports circulating about an indefinite curtailment at Tolko’s Heffley Creek veneer facility,” the company said. “This reporting is inaccurate.” Hot and dry conditions are impacting some Tolko harvesting operations, resulting in reduced fiber supply and a temporary shutdown of veneer production. The remainder of the Heffley Creek facility is fully operational, with full production expected to return this week.
Hundreds of stunned B.C. businesses are scrambling. …Doug Pauze, president of Coastland Wood Industries woke up Saturday to an escalating trade war with a 50% tariff target on the wood veneer that Coastland produces. With about 50% of its product typically exported to the US… that means scaling back production. For now, he’ll will avoid layoffs among his 320 employees. What the industry needs from counter-tariffs, he added, is for Canada to put an equal focus on the same amount of competing wood products coming into Canada, because “there (are) no other market options.” …Prime Minister Carney has vowed to levy counter-tariffs on US imports. BC business owner Baha Naemi hopes his government focuses on markets where Canadians can fill any voids the counter-tariffs create. Naemi’s company, CanCorr, makes corrugated cardboard and boxes in Surrey. …BC imports more corrugated paper products from the US than it exports, creating opportunities for Canadian producers hit by tariffs.
BC’s forestry industry expects it will be one of the hardest-hit sectors by the United States’ new 50% tariffs on Canadian goods. …”This is clearly an attack on Canada,” said Derek Nighbor, president of FPAC. Nighbor said the most recent trade action by the US government captures more than $4 billion in Canadian lumber products that include not only raw materials, but also value-added and processed goods like fibreboard, particleboard, paper packaging, and wood moulding products. …David Elstone, a strategic advisor, “Unequivocally, this is the worst, absolutely worst situation we’ve ever been in.” …Kim Haakstad, CEO of COFI, said the lumber industry as a whole is deeply invested in developing international markets and relationships overseas, but cannot compete on a global stage. She said the high cost of Canadian lumber is driven by both federal and provincial harvesting regulations, making it difficult to diversify to markets beyond the US.
It’s one of the great paradoxes of B.C.’s declining forestry sector. Large forestry companies continue to divest from B.C. and shutter sawmills and pulp mills, largely due to a lack of access to affordable fibre. Meanwhile, in Coastal B.C., there seems to be plenty of timber available, mostly in the form of second growth. In 2025, only half of the 15 million cubic metres of the coastal available cut was harvested, according to the Truck Loggers Association. Nearly a third of that timber is owned or controlled by Coastal First Nations – about 4.6 million cubic metres. 
Prince George city council voted in favour of sending a letter to provincial Labour Minister Jennifer Whiteside at its Monday, Aug. 17 meeting to reinstate a program helping workers near retirement in the wake of the impending closure of the Northwood Pulp Mill. At the Monday, Aug. 10 meeting of the city’s Standing Committee, members discussed the imminent closure of the mill. During that committee meeting, the city’s manager of economic development, Deklan Corstanje, said that the last time a mill closed, workers were able to access a provincial program called Bridging to Retirement. Before the program stopped accepting applications on Feb. 26, 2025, it provided forestry worked aged 55 and older with funding to help facilitate an early retirement. …The committee ultimately passed a motion recommending that council approve Mayor Simon Yu sending a letter to Whiteside asking for the program’s restoration.
The wrecking ball is readying for the former Northern Pulp mill, a once major player in Nova Scotia’s forestry sector that also came to be recognized as one of the province’s most prominent examples of environmental racism. Environment Minister Tim Halman announced an amended ministerial order on Thursday, clearing the way for the decommissioning, abatement and demolition of buildings and other infrastructure at the site in Abercrombie that sits on the edge of Pictou Harbour. Officials with Northern Timber Nova Scotia, the company that owns the property, expect the work to begin as early as September. …Halman’s amended order says all solid waste, including construction and demolition debris from the mill site, must be disposed of in an approved facility and everything must be removed within 18 months. …An official for Domtar said the work is expected to be complete in the last quarter of 2027,” Brenda Martin said.
… municipal politicians [will] gather for their annual fall convention and attempt to influence the provincial government’s agenda. The Union of B.C. Municipalities convention takes place in Vancouver, Sept. 14-18. …The City of Nanaimo is calling for a ban on exporting raw logs and lumber cants. …The motion states that a lack of adequate and affordable wood fibre supply has been identified as a key factor in the continued curtailment or permanent closure of B.C. sawmills and pulp mills. Over the past five years, on average about 3.2 million cubic metres of raw logs have been exported. “Therefore be it resolved that UBCM call on the provincial government and federal governments to ban the export of raw logs and lumber cants from B.C. to ensure that forests harvested in B.C. from Crown land and private managed forest lands are processed in B.C., encouraging value-added manufacturing in B.C. and supporting employment in B.C.’s forest industry,” the motion states. [A Vancouver Sun subscription required for full access]
Nova Scotia’s softwood lumber exports south of the border have been spared from Donald Trump’s tariffs, but pine products from the province are facing steep new costs in the deepening trade rift between Canada and the United States. About 60 to 80 per cent of Nova Scotia’s pine products — some $25 million worth — are shipped to the U.S., and they have been hammered with 50 per cent tariffs imposed by the president over the weekend. The province’s forestry industry said the tariffs “will essentially kill the white pine market in Nova Scotia.” “It’s concerning,” Breck Stuart, president of Forest Nova Scotia, said in an interview Monday. “The western half of Nova Scotia, where there’s a lot of white pine, that’s 30 per cent of our forest. That market basically went to zero overnight. …Stuart said most of the province’s pine products flow through Freeman Lumber in Greenfield, Millett Lumber in Chester and Lewis Moulding and Wood Specialties in Weymouth.
“One of the hazards of free trade with the United States is the risk of what we’re witnessing now, that the United States could use its economic levers and turn on us as this behemouth next door that has become hostile without us having the time or opportunity to pivot,” said Tom Urbaniak, a professor at Cape Breton University….Where does Nova Scotia stand? “I don’t know,” Stephen Cole answered when asked whether the new tariffs will affect the province’s lumber and paper industries. …Sawmill owners had the same answer. Nova Scotia softwood exports south of the border have been protected under the CUSMA. “We have mostly private wood (about 70% cut off private land), so our timber market here is deemed to be a competitive market,” explained Cole. …What the Nova Scotia forestry industry doesn’t know yet is whether that CUSMA exemption remains under the new tariffs.
GOLDEN LAKE — The Ontario government is investing over $2.1 million in four projects to increase forest sector competitiveness and drive innovative uses for mill by-products and underused wood known as forest biomass. As part of the government’s plan to protect Ontario and build a competitive, resilient and self-reliant economy, these investments will position the forest sector to unlock new markets, bolster supply chains and protect good-paying jobs. “Our government is helping forest sector businesses build international reach and bring competitive products to market,” said Kevin Holland, Associate Minister of Forestry and Forest Products. “Under our forest sector roadmap, we’re driving the industry’s continued growth and showcasing Ontario’s capacity as a G7 leader in innovative manufacturing.” Associate Minister Holland made the announcement at Ben Hokum and Son, which is receiving over $1.9 million to install two biomass-assisted steam kilns… These investments are delivering on the government’s 
Exporters across Brazil shipped US$7.5 billion of pulp, paper, and wood panels over the first half of 2026, down 5.9 per cent on the same months last year, while imports of paper into a market that has always supplied itself climbed 30.5 per cent. That is according to Indústria Brasileira de Árvores, the association representing the country’s pulp, paper, and panel producers, which last week revealed that its export sales into the North American market had sunk by 22.9 per cent. “There is an excess of production from some countries being directed to Latin America and Brazil,” Paulo Hartung said, with the Ibá president putting the half-year down to wars and to a resurgence of protectionism that has disorganised international supply chains. Pulp, the biggest single line in the sector’s export schedule, accounted for $5.2 billion of that total, with export volumes down 10.5 per cent to 9.4 million tonnes, while production held near-stable at 13.9 million tonnes.
The US International Trade Commission (USITC) announced its injury determinations in its antidumping and countervailing duty investigations concerning hardwood and decorative plywood from China, Indonesia, and Vietnam that the US Department of Commerce determined are subsidized and sold in the US at less than fair value and subsidized by the governments of China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. …Chairman Brett W. Doyle and Commissioners Jason S. Kearns and Peter-Anthony Pappas voted in the affirmative regarding hardwood and decorative plywood from China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. They also found that the imports of softwood structural plywood downfall and stamped and certified softwood structural plywood that Commerce determined are sold at less than fair value and subsidized… are negligible, and voted to terminate the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations for these products from China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. The report will be available on the USITC website by September 28, 2026.
SAVANNAH, Georgia — The South, and Georgia in particular, have borne the brunt of a historic run of pulp and paper-mill closures as recycled boxes, cheap imported pulp and more thrifty packing by e-commerce giants, including Amazon.com, have hit demand. Last year, the US shed roughly 10% of its capacity to produce containerboard. …Demand for pulpwood plummeted. So did demand for wood chips, sawdust and other byproducts. Prices across the South are at the lowest level in nearly 40 years before factoring in inflation. In some parts, there’s essentially no market. Some growers are, for the first time, having to pay to have their pulpwood removed. …A search is on to create new sources of demand. Weyerhaeuser, the South’s largest timberland owner with about 6.6 million acres in 11 states, is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build facilities in Arkansas and Mississippi to turn pulpwood surpluses into engineered lumber and an alternative to metallurgical coal, respectively. [to access the full story a WSJ subscription is required]
This month’s Lumber Shorts includes these stories and more:
The fight for restitution is on at a fallen green-energy giant, following one of the most disastrous commodity trades of the decade. The ill-fated wood-pellet trades that bankrupted Enviva during the sustainable-investing boom were made by executives hoping to trigger their own bonuses, according to creditors who are seeking more than $2 billion in damages. Instead… the nine-figure trades backfired and bankrupted the company, which once had a nearly $6 billion market value. Five of the company’s top executives concealed the inordinately large and risky trades from its board, according to a lawsuit, suppliers and others with claims. …Enviva said it wasn’t involved in the litigation, and none of the former executives named in the suit are affiliated with the reorganized company, which emerged from bankruptcy in December 2024 with new owners and leadership. …The company was considered one of the winners of the green-energy boom. [to access the full story a WSJ subscription is required]
