🇨🇦 U.S. Softwood Lumber Tariffs Drop to 25 Percent — Still Punishing, Still a Policy Failure Canada Earned

The U.S. Department of Commerce has posted a preliminary tariff determination on Canadian softwood lumber at just under 25 percent — down from the current rate of over 35 percent. Industry will call this a win. It is not a win. It is a less severe punishment, and Canada has been here before, cycling through lumber disputes for four decades because Ottawa has never resolved the underlying subsidy structure that U.S. producers use to justify the tariffs in the first place, confirmed by Commerce in its latest determination.

Canadian forestry workers in B.C. and beyond are not celebrating a reduction from 35 to 25 — they are absorbing a permanent competitive handicap while federal governments of every stripe announce task forces and bilateral working groups and accomplish nothing structural. The Carney government will claim diplomatic credit for a number that is still crippling. Meanwhile the mill towns that actually cut the lumber will keep waiting for a resolution that Canadian trade policy has never been serious enough to deliver.

🍁 Maple Chronicles