Remodeling | Framing, Lumber, Lumberyards: The U.S. government's imposition of 20% countervailing duties will anger builders and delight dealers by helping prop up current prices, but it's unlikely to lead to any new surge in the cost of softwood because traders have factored the duties into their prices for months.
2 comments:
It is so interesting to me how much of a ‘thing’ this tariff is and it shows how deep each industry goes and how complex the government really is. I now think it would be interesting to learn more about the soft wood industry worldwide. Consumption and production numbers would be extremely interesting, as well as more about tariff numbers between countries and seeing how complex they are. Also, how much of the soft wood consumed by the US is imported, and since we do import, is there any that we do export? How does this differ from the hard wood industry? In what state is the wood transported across borders and does it vary from company to company. How do the standards change if it is transported in one state or another? How does distribution work. Are they distributed from Canada, or do the Canadians send the wood to distribution centers in the US?
So I happen to be taking a class at the moment on executive branch policy – focusing on the first hundred days in office. Most of what we do is compare the work of Donald Trump to past presidents, and talk about his initiatives and campaign promises as well as any steps he has deemed fit to undertake to complete those promises. Getting back on track, a disproportionate amount of our last class was about this softwood tariff. Negotiations for this tariff are hilariously messy, since most of the building industry, as well as our industry, relies rather heavily on soft woods. This country tends to measure itself by new home building as well, so this was pretty much what analysts thought was the main thing holding up an official announcement of intent to withdraw from NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement – a trade policy between Mexico, Canada, and the US). However, it seems that this issue has been resolved (wood will cost more…) and repealing NAFTA was one of Trump’s campaign promises (though he has not exactly made strides in completing that list). My main point is that this settlement is a much larger deal than it seems at first glance and it will affect much more than just homes and theater.
Post a Comment