This will hurt American consumers...
Trump Slaps Duty on Canada Lumber, Intensifying Trade Fight
by Jennifer Epstein and Joe Light
April 24, 2017, 6:58 PM EDT April 24, 2017, 10:44 PM EDT
Step will raise cost of home-building, mattress box springs
Canada vows to fight back against ‘unfair” import duties
U.S. President Donald Trump intensified a trade dispute with Canada, slapping tariffs of up to 24 percent on imported softwood lumber in a move that drew swift criticism from the Canadian government, which vowed to sue if needed.
Trump announced the new tariff at a White House gathering of conservative journalists, shortly before the Commerce Department said it would impose countervailing duties ranging from 3 percent to 24.1 percent on Canadian lumber producers including West Fraser Timber Co.
“We’re going to be putting a 20% tax on softwood lumber coming in -- tariff on softwood coming into the United States from Canada,” Trump said Monday, according to a tweet by Charlie Spiering, a White House correspondent for Breitbart News. A White House official confirmed the comment.
The step escalates an economic battle among neighboring countries that normally have one of the friendliest international relationships in the world. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross amplified Trump’s remarks in a statement afterward that also referenced a fight over a new Canadian milk policy that U.S. producers say violates Nafta.
“It has been a bad week for U.S.-Canada trade relations,” Ross said, adding “it became apparent that Canada intends to effectively cut off the last dairy products being exported from the United States." He said the Commerce Department “determined a need” because of unfair Canadian subsidies to the lumber industry to impose “countervailing duties of roughly one billion dollars.”
In a dig at the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has said he wants to renegotiate, Ross added, “This is not our idea of a properly functioning Free Trade Agreement.”
Canada Response
Canada fired back, saying the tariff is an "unfair and punitive duty" imposed on "baseless and unfounded" allegations, according to a joint statement from Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr. The measures will hurt workers on both sides of the border and will raise U.S. home prices, they said.
Canada "will vigorously defend the interests of the Canadian softwood lumber industry, including through litigation," the ministers said, adding they nonetheless "remain confident that a negotiated settlement is not only possible but in the best interests of both countries.”
The Canadian dollar dropped to a 4-month low against the U.S. dollar after Trump announced the tariff, trading down 0.40 percent to C$1.356. The loonie traded at 73.8 U.S. cents.
In the latest chapter of a trade dispute that has been simmering for decades, the U.S. Department of Commerce in a preliminary determination Monday said it has calculated that Canada subsidizes Canfor Corp. by 20.26 percent; West Fraser Mills Ltd. by 24.12 percent; Tolko Marketing and Sales Ltd. and Tolko Industries Ltd. by 19.5 percent; Resolute FP Canada Ltd. by 12.82 percent and J.D. Irving Ltd. by 3.02 percent. It set a preliminary subsidy rate of 19.88 percent for all other producers in Canada.
more:
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-24/trump-said-to-plan-20-tariff-on-canadian-softwood-lumber-j1wq4tyg
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