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Date: 2025-08-22 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028996

CANADA LUMBER MoneyW: Trump STUNNED As Timber Giant COLLAPSES U.S. Housing Just IMPLODED Over Canada Tariffs PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6sAZZYm-zw&list=TLPQMDkwODIwMjWyc1gQ8_9OlA&index=5
Trump STUNNED As Timber Giant COLLAPSES — U.S. Housing Just IMPLODED Over Canada Tariffs MoneyW 26.6K subscribers ... 73,167 views ... 1.9K likes Aug 8, 2025 #trumptariffs #trump #canada Trump STUNNED As Timber Giant COLLAPSES — U.S. Housing Just IMPLODED Over Canada Tariffs The U.S.–Canada trade war just reached a new level. President Donald Trump has imposed a 35% tariff on Canadian softwood lumber, aiming to protect U.S. timber producers. But instead of backing down, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a $1B support package for the nation’s lumber industry. This bold counter-move signals a major escalation in the decades-long lumber dispute, with ripple effects threatening both economies. While Washington pushes for higher tariffs, Canada is reinforcing its domestic sector and diversifying exports to Europe and Asia. Analysts warn the U.S. housing market is already feeling the pain — rising material costs are slowing construction, driving up home prices, and squeezing builders nationwide. With tensions climbing and neither side willing to blink, this showdown could reshape North American trade policy for years to come. If you found this breakdown informative, don’t forget to like the video, subscribe to the channel, and turn on notifications so you never miss an update on global trade, economics, and market trends. Your support helps us bring you the latest insights on the stories shaping the world. #trump #trumptariffs #canada Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Back in the 1960s when I was in my 20s, I migrated from the UK to Canada. My new wife and I moved to Vancouver where I got my first job in North America working for H. A Simes (HAS), a forest products consultancy. After an intensive orientation, I became part of the firm's field consultancy team. I was assigned to a team based in Texas in the USA were HAS was supervising the construction of two pulp and paper mills. One of these was a 'green-field' site building everythong from scratch, the other was an expandsion of an existing mill, effectively doubling its size. In both cases the primary contractor was Brown & Root (B&R), one of the biggest contractors in the USA. I was the 'field accountant' for these two projects ... a perfect job to gain useful experience and do some good. I got some positive notoriety when I did a small 'ad-hoc' analysis of the labor costs that B&R was billing one of the projects. HAS worked with a fairly comprehensive construction budget for its projects, and I set about comparing the costs billed by B&R with the budget for the work done. There were about 1,400 B&R workers on the site when I did my analysis, and the budget being consumed was about twice what it should have been! My boss ... a very competent construction engineer / manager did a throough review of my work ... about 4 hoors of intense analysis ... before calling the B&R project manager to arrange a meeting for the next morning. The outcome was that the staffing of the project was reduced from 1,400 to just 700 ... and when the project was completed about two years later, the total project cost was just 2% over the budget plan even though the background infkation was around 10%. That was more than 60 years ago. During my subsequent career, I kept finding examples of ineffective sloppy management. A lot of the technology that has become commonplace has huge potential to be very very cost effective ... but most of society is not seeing good results but exactly the opposite. There has never been as much inequality in the economy as there has been in recent years, and few people seem to undersand the danger this posses ... especially the Trump cabal that is currently at the 'top' of the USA. A very scary situation! Peter Burgess Transcript 0:00 Trump administration is taking aim at major at a major Canadian export. The US Commerce Department is hiking anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber to 20.56%. The softwood lumber industry is taking a hit because of significant new duties from the United States. America's Alberta's biggest softwood lumber market, but BC may be hit the hardest. 35% on lumber going across the line is just ridiculous. There's over 250 small manufacturing familyrun companies like us in BC. It's going to kill thousands of jobs. What happens when a major trade partner slams a hefty new tariff on a key building material? Early in 2025, the world found out. The United States reignited a long simmering lumber war with Canada by suddenly imposing a steep 25% tariff on imported Canadian softwood lumber, aiming to redraw the map of North American trade. The move was aimed at shoring up domestic producers, and 1:00 the impact was immediate. Markets quivered, and industries braced for a shock wave. An American timber titan saw its quarterly profits suddenly sliced in half, while Ottawa quietly hinted at a surprisingly large financial lever it could pull in retaliation. This conflict quickly became about far more than just lumber duties. It turned into a highstakes collision between politics and production with consequences that could ripple through entire industries. And there's a twist in this unfolding saga, a hidden bargaining chip worth nearly $1 trillion that we'll reveal later in our analysis. Before we begin, make sure to hit the like button. It helps us beat the YouTube algorithm. The tariff decision set events in motion at a blistering pace. Within weeks, reverberations were being felt from corporate boardrooms to construction sites. One of the first to feel the sting was wire user, a leading US timber and forestry company. By the middle of the year, Wire Houser announced that its second quarter profit had been cut almost clean in half compared to the previous year. An alarming bell weather for the industry. Wirehauser manages 2:00 millions of acres of timberland and is often seen as a bellweather for the health of the entire sector. At the same time, Canadian officials began dropping hints that they weren't as powerless as they might seem. They suggested that Canada had some serious economic clout in reserve, hinting at a form of financial leverage that caught many observers offguard. Meanwhile, a delegation of US senators hurried north to Ottawa for urgent talks, scrambling to revive stalled negotiations before an August 1st deadline set by Washington. Clearly, a storm was brewing on both sides of the border, and each side was holding firm. Before diving deeper into each development, let's examine how this tariff rekindled a long-standing trade feud and why it struck such a nerve. Before we continue, make sure to hit the subscribe button. It really helps the channel grow. The US Canada softwood lumber dispute is nothing new. It's a trade feud that has flared repeatedly for decades. But February 2025 marked a dramatic escalation. That month, the Trump administration dropped the hammer with a hefty new 25% tariff on Canadian softwood lumber imports. This wasn't an 3:01 isolated move. It came on top of existing duties already in place. Prior to this, Canadian lumber was subject to a combination of anti-dumping and counterveailing duties, averaging about 14.54%, remnants of earlier trade actions. Now, with the additional tariff, the total burden on some Canadian lumber shipments was pushed dangerously close to a punishing 40% combined tax. To make matters even tenser, the United States also slapped a smaller 10% tariff on certain other Canadian exports like oil and energy products, underscoring that this broad trade offensive went beyond just wood. Over the past four decades, the two neighbors repeatedly sparred over softwood lumber with multiple rounds of tariffs, legal battles, and short-lived trade packs. Each temporary truce, most recently a 2006 agreement that lasted until 2015, eventually gave way to new tensions once it expired. Washington didn't stop there. By late July, US trade officials doubled down on the pressure. On July 25th, the Department of Commerce finalized a fresh 4:00 set of anti-dumping rates on Canadian lumber based on the prior year's data. They set a new anti-dumping duty of about 20.56% on lumber coming from Canada. A clear signal that Washington was dead serious about enforcement. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik made it crystal clear that an August 1st deadline was non-negotiable. By that date, either a new lumber trade deal would be in place or these tariffs and duties would proceed full steam ahead with no further grace period. In public statements, Lutnik stressed that the US had already given ample time for a negotiated solution and that the era of temporary reprieves was over. The US lumber industry voiced strong support for the hardline stance. In fact, the chief executive of Wire Hay user, America's largest private lumber producer, publicly backed the tariff move. He argued that it was overdue support for domestic sawmills, which have long complained they were competing on an uneven playing field. US producers allege that Canadian lumber is effectively subsidized by Canadian provincial policies that allow timber to be harvested at below market rates on 5:00 public land. From their perspective, the flood of cheaper Canadian wood has undercut prices and hurt American mills and logging communities for years. Now with tariffs cranked up, those US mills anticipated a better shot at reclaiming market share. We need to level the field for American timber. Wire Huser's leadership essentially argued, applauding the administration's tough approach as a lifeline for domestic production. North of the border, however, the response was alarm and frustration. Canadian officials were caught off guard by the breath of the US actions. Ottawa immediately began weighing its options, and in a startling departure from past policy, the Canadian government hinted it might consider imposing export quotas on its lumber, something it hasn't done in decades. Such quotas, which would limit the volume of softwood lumber Canadian companies could send to the US, have long been demanded by American negotiators in past disputes. Yet, Canada has always resisted, arguing that free trade should prevail. The mere fact that export limits were even on the table now signaled how pressured Canada felt. All these escalations weren't just 6:00 diplomatic maneuvers. Real companies and workers were about to feel the impact of this trade conflict. American companies, especially those in forestry and construction, braced themselves as this decades old conflict entered a volatile new phase. The consequences of the tariff strike were not abstract. They hit real companies and workers almost immediately. By late July, just a few months into this trade offensive, Wire Huser delivered some jarring news to its shareholders and employees. In its second quarter earnings report for 2025, the timber giant revealed that profits had plunged dramatically, falling by roughly 50% compared to the same period a year earlier. In dollar terms, net earnings slid from about $173 million in the spring of the previous year to only $87 million this year. What had been a 9-figure profit was suddenly cut clean in half. Even though Wirehauser's quarterly revenue of roughly $1.9 billion managed to come in slightly above analysts expectations, that was cold comfort given the profit crunch. Earnings per share missed Wall Street's 7:00 target and company executives had to face some tough questions in their conference call with investors. On that investor call, Wire Huer's leadership did not sugarcoat the challenges. They warned that the turbulence wasn't over yet. In fact, management projected that the company's adjusted profit in the upcoming third quarter would likely come in about $60 million lower than what they achieved in the second quarter. In plain terms, they saw storm clouds still gathering on the horizon. What was driving this steep decline? A trio of harsh headwinds were identified. First, demand for wood products had weakened notably as rising interest rates put a chill on home construction and renovations. Second, lumber markets were overs supplied. Inventory had piled up in some regions, making it hard for producers to command good prices. And third, costs were rising throughout the supply chain, in part due to the looming new tariff regime, which made everything from raw logs to finished lumber more expensive or uncertain. Prices for both standard lumber and engineered wood panels were losing traction, and builder 8:00 sentiment had firmly hit the brakes. There were faint glimmers that lumber prices might be stabilizing at lower levels, but executives admitted that any such relief was modest at best. All of this added up to a sobering outlook for the company's near-term profitability and by extension a warning for the wider industry. However, Wire Huser wasn't simply folding its arms and waiting for the storm to blow over. The company responded by shoring up its position where it could. For one, it went on the offensive in asset investment. Wire Huser began snapping up additional timber acreage in strategic locations, essentially betting that owning more forest land now will pay off in the long run. It also poured money into expanding its capacity to produce engineered wood products like specialty panels and structural composits that often fetch higher margins than raw lumber. Alongside these moves, management authorized a stock buyback program on the order of $100 million, a signal to investors that they believe the company was undervalued and that they're confident in riding out this turbulence. In short, Wire Huser aimed to navigate 9:01 the trade storm with muscle and strategic investment. Indeed, the fortunes of companies like Wire Huer hinged on the health of the housing market. By the summer of 2025, the US housing sector found itself caught in a pinser movement of economic pressures. On one side, borrowing costs had climbed dramatically as the Federal Reserve's earlier interest rate hikes continued to ripple through the economy. On the other side, the cost of building materials was shooting up thanks to the renewed lumber tariffs. Together, these factors started to squeeze the life out of what had been a red-hot housing market just a couple of years prior. In May, sales of new single family homes in the United States took their sharpest dive in nearly 3 years. For many observers, it was an unmistakable sign that the housing boom had run into a wall. Wouldbe buyers already discouraged by mortgage rates that had risen to levels not seen in over a decade now faced another hurdle. Higher prices for the basic materials that make up a home. At the same time, housing inventory ballooned, leaving developers wary and buyers sidelined. Houses started spending more time on the 10:01 market and less time under contract. Developers, sensing the one-two punch of pricier construction costs and wary consumers, grew more cautious about breaking ground on new projects. Many homebuilders hit the pause button on planned construction, opting to wait and see how conditions evolve rather than risk overbuilding into a downturn. The unpredictability of lumber costs played a big role in this caution. Lumber prices had always been somewhat volatile, but with the tariff situation in flux, that volatility only increased. A load of framing lumber that might have been priced affordably a year ago could now swing widely in cost from month to month, making it difficult for builders to budget projects. In such an environment, some builders decided it was better to postpone construction starts, hoping for more price stability down the road. There is a tangible figure that illustrates just how much these trade policies could affect home buyers. According to some industry projections, if the new tariffs remain in place, they could add as much as $14,000 to the cost of constructing a typical new single family home by the year 2027. Think about that. Nearly 15 11:02 grand extra simply due to trade policy. In an era where affordability is already a major concern, that kind of cost increase can put home ownership further out of reach for many families or force builders and buyers to cut corners elsewhere. Industry advocates cautioned that this price surge could put home ownership out of reach for many families. The National Association of Homebuilders warned that tariffs risk worsening the housing affordability crisis at a time when interest rates were already high. Supporters of the lumber tariffs, such as the US Lumber Coalition, a powerful alliance of domestic lumber producers, acknowledge that there are ripple effects on home construction, but they argue that those effects are temporary and necessary. They maintain that Canadian lumber producers have long been dumping wood into the US market at artificially low prices, undercutting American mills. From their viewpoint, a period of adjustment with higher prices is a price worth paying to rebuild a robust domestic lumber industry. Indeed, advocates note that when US lumber mills are running at full capacity, it can 12:00 ultimately lead to more stable supply and potentially lower prices in the long run. Critics, however, are not convinced. They point out that lumber and other building materials had already been a major contributor to rising home costs in recent years and that adding tariffs on top of that simply pours fuel on the fire. As construction projects slow, the pain doesn't stop with builders and buyers. It flows backward through the supply chain. Sawmills process fewer logs, wood product factories receive fewer orders, and logging crews have less work in the forest. For companies like Wirehouser and its peers, all of this translates into slimmer profit margins and tougher business decisions. The housing market, in short, was feeling the squeeze from both ends. From the forest to the construction site, every link in the chain was feeling the strain. Canada, for its part, was not about to simply absorb the blows without responding. As the US tariffs began to bite, Canada's strategy shifted from frustrated rhetoric to calculated realignment. The Canadian government started looking for pressure points, areas of economic leverage where Canada could quietly 13:00 remind the United States of their mutual interdependence. One eye-opening fact was highlighted by Canada's Minister of International Trade, Dominic Leblanc. He pointed out that Canadian pension funds and investors have a massive footprint in the US financial system on the order of $1 trillion invested in American pensions and markets and growing by roughly $100 billion every year. This wasn't a direct threat to pull out that capital, but by drawing attention to it, Ottawa sent a subtle message. We have substantial influence, too. The subtext was clear. If trade relations truly worsened, Canada has the capacity to recalibrate where its money flows, and that could have consequences for US markets as well. Prime Minister Mark Carney took a firm public stance in the face of Washington's ultimatums. Carney, who incidentally had a deep background in finance as a former central banker before entering politics, was now at the helm of Canada's government and keenly aware of these economic dynamics. He insisted that any new softwood lumber deal with the US would have to protect Canadian jobs and communities first and 14:00 foremost. Carney flatly refused to be rushed by President Trump's August 1st deadline. In interviews, he emphasized that Canada would not sign a bad deal under pressure, even as that date loomed large. The message from the prime minister's office was one of resolve. Canada would negotiate if the terms were fair, but it would not be strong armed into accepting a lopsided agreement in a haste to meet an American political timeline. Meanwhile, pressure was mounting at home as Canadian miltowns and provincial leaders warned of layoffs unless a solution was found. Behind the scenes, Canadian officials also started contemplating a significant policy shift that would have been almost unthinkable a few years earlier. The possibility of agreeing to some form of export restriction or quota system for lumber. US negotiators have historically pushed for Canada to limit its lumber shipments as a way to manage supply and stabilize prices. Canada has always pushed back, viewing quotas as an infringement on its sovereignty and market freedom. But now, with tariffs stacking up and pressure mounting, even stalwart free traders in 15:00 Ottawa conceded that a carefully managed export quota might be a card worth playing if it could secure a broader trade piece. This idea gained traction when a bipartisan group of US senators made a trip to Ottawa in the summer. These American lawmakers came urging compromise, specifically a deal enshrined under the United States Mexico Canada agreement, USMCA, that could put a cap on Canadian lumber exports in exchange for lifting tariffs. Their visit underscored that not everyone in Washington was content to let the dispute simmer indefinitely. There was political will in some quarters for a negotiated settlement. Meanwhile, Canadian lumber companies were not standing idle either. Sensing that the US market was becoming less reliable or more costly to serve, many Canadian exporters began redirecting their efforts elsewhere. In just about a year's time, the share of Canada's softwood lumber exports going to the United States dropped significantly from roughly 78% of total exports down to about 68%. Where did that nearly 10% of exports go instead? To other markets 16:00 across the Atlantic and the Pacific. Canadian mills found willing buyers in Europe, where construction demand was solid, and in Asia, where growing economies hungered for wood for housing and development. This diversification was Canada's insurance policy. By not having all their eggs in the US basket, Canadian producers could reduce their vulnerability to US tariffs. It was not an easy pivot, but it demonstrated Canada's resolve to adapt rather than simply suffer. Shipping lumber across oceans comes with its own challenges such as higher transportation costs and the need to meet different grading standards in foreign markets. Still, Ottawa's message was that Canada would not be held hostage by a single market. In the grand chess match of trade, Ottawa was moving its pieces into new positions, quietly leveraging financial influence, weighing structural concessions like quotas, and opening new markets. Each move designed to counterbalance Washington's aggressive gambit. Back in the United States, the federal government wasn't just relying on tariffs to reshape the lumber landscape. The Trump administration simultaneously launched efforts to boost 17:00 domestic timber production, as if trying to race against time to fill any supply gap that might result from cutting back Canadian imports. One flagship initiative was a plan to increase logging on federal lands by raising harvest quotas by about 25%. In theory, this meant opening up more acres of national forests to logging companies and even revisiting areas that had been off limits under environmental rules. Specifically, officials proposed loosening protections set by the famous roadless rule of 2001, which had preserved vast swaths of federal forest from road building and logging by overturning parts of those protections. The administration aimed to unleash new logging activity in places that had been quiet for decades. On paper, a 25% increase in federal timber harvest sounds huge. But forestry experts quickly poured cold water on the idea that it would dramatically change the game. The reality is that lumber supply in the US is influenced far more by private lands and market demand than by what can be taken from federal forests in the short term. Even if the 18:00 government managed to auction off more timber from national forests, analysts estimated it would boost the nation's total wood supply by less than 1%. In other words, it's like trying to fuel a high-powered engine through a coffee straw. Nowhere near enough flow to keep things running smoothly. Many of the federal forests with potentially harvestable timber are remote and hard to access without costly new roads or contain trees that aren't easily turned into the kind of lumber the construction industry needs right now. And that's before considering the legal challenges. Conservation and climate organizations vowed to challenge the roll backs in court, arguing that opening protected forest to logging would threaten wildlife and climate goals. Almost as soon as plans were announced, environmental advocacy groups prepared to file lawsuits, arguing that such moves would violate conservation laws and harm ecosystems. Decades of forest protections wouldn't be rolled back without a courtroom fight, meaning any theoretical bump in timber supply could be years away. Nevertheless, the push for a logging revival had its supporters and did spur some activity in the industry. In parts of the Pacific Northwest and the South, some sawmill 19:01 operators looked at the policy shift as an encouraging sign and began investing in upgrades. American lumber mills, knowing they needed to stay competitive, ramped up modernization efforts. Many adopted more automation and robotics on their production lines to boost efficiency. The idea was to squeeze more product out of each log and to do it with lower labor and waste costs. if Canadian lumber was going to be scarcer or pricier due to tariffs, US mills wanted to be ready to step into the breach with every efficiency advantage they could muster. For communities that had been devastated by past mill closures, like those in Washington's Scammania County, which once boasted half a dozen busy sawmills, but now has just one survivor, any hope of rejuvenation was welcome. There and in similar towns, officials hoped that a resurgence in logging might bring back jobs and vitality. Yet they also knew that it was a race against the clock. The housing market needed lumber now, not years from now. Another notable development was a trend of Canadian lumber companies themselves investing in the US lumber industry. Several major 20:02 Canadian wood producers decided that if they were going to face stiff tariffs sending lumber south, they might as well cut the wood on American soil. In recent years, firms like West Fraser and Canfor have been buying or building sawmills in US states such as Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. Those southern states offer abundant pinrich forests, relatively lower operating costs, and crucially, freedom from crossber tariffs. By milling lumber within the United States, Canadian companies can effectively dodge the trade conflict while still serving American customers. It's a strategic hedge, shorten the supply chain, avoid import duties, and still profit from the robust US demand for wood. For instance, major firms from north of the border have set up mills in states like Alabama and Georgia in recent years, bringing investment and jobs directly to those local communities. This influx of Canadian investment into US forestry is something the US lumber coalition actually applauded. From their perspective, if Canadian firms want to contribute to 21:00 American manufacturing and jobs, all the better. Each new mill on US soil, no matter who owns it, means more domestic capacity and less reliance on imports. Still, some industry veterans watch this trend wearily, noting that it blurs the line between us and them in this trade fight. If Canadian companies operate mills in the US, are they now part of the domestic industry worth protecting, or are they an added competitive threat to existing American-owned mills? That debate aside, the immediate effect was positive for the areas getting new investment. Those southern communities welcomed the jobs and economic boost, viewing it as a silver lining amid the trade turbulence. For all these efforts to amp up American lumber output, significant obstacles remain. Beyond the courtroom battles over environmental regulations, the US faces basic resource limits. Trees take years to grow to harvestable size, and decades of reduced logging in federal forests cannot be reversed overnight. Even on private lands, lumber production can't be instantly ramped up without regard for sustainable harvesting practices. If 22:00 mills overcut now to capitalize on high prices, they risk shortages and price crashes later when supply catches up. an all too familiar boom bust cycle in forestry. And as critics pointed out, aggressively cutting more timber might conflict with other values Americans hold, like conserving wilderness, protecting water supplies, and fighting climate change by keeping forests intact. The logging revival, in short, is not a switch that can be flipped on quickly or without trade-offs. It is more like a long, arduous road that the US is just beginning to travel, even as the need for lumber in the present moment continues unabated. For now, the dispute is essentially at a stalemate. Each side publicly refusing to back down. On one side, Washington is betting that tariffs and a push for domestic production will pressure Ottawa into a deal. On the other, Canada is countering by finding new markets and using every bit of leverage it can muster. Notably, the last softwood lumber trade agreement expired in 2015, leaving the two countries without a stable framework and making this one of the first major tests 23:00 of the US MCA era. Some trade experts have floated the possibility of a new softwood lumber agreement that would suspend tariffs and set predictable quotas for several years, providing the market with muchneeded stability. Others suggest more innovative approaches like joint investments in forestry technology or agreements on sustainable harvesting practices that benefit both sides. Any deal, however, would demand political courage and a willingness to compromise in the face of domestic pressure. It's a tall order, but not an impossible one. Especially as the costs of an extended standoff continue to mount. In the meantime, one thing is certain. The outcome of this lumber clash will reverberate well beyond sawmills and timberlands. It will set a precedent for how the United States and Canada handle their economic disputes in the future, potentially influencing other industries as well. This episode highlights the delicate balance each country must strike between protecting domestic industries and embracing crossber trade. Right now, a simple piece of lumber isn't just a commodity. It has become a 24:00 symbol of economic policy choices and national priorities. And everyone from Canadian loggers to American home buyers has a stake in how this story ends. As both countries navigate this impass, the hope is that they can ultimately find an equilibrium that truly preserves fair competition while still keeping essential goods like housing materials within reach for ordinary people. Both neighbors have plenty writing on a resolution that truly works for all. For now, all eyes are on the negotiations and the forests as this highstakes standoff continues to unfold in the coming months and beyond with no clear end in sight. This is the true cost of the tariff strategy, one that won't show up immediately in any export ledger or price index, but will be felt in the fabric of the global economy for years to come. The United States may yet realize tariff revenues and claim victory in isolated battles. But if it finds itself alone with fray alliances and a diminished role, it risks losing the larger war for global economic leadership. The lesson emerging from this turbulent summer is a sobering one. When allies start walking away, it's hard to win them

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