Soft wood? That what you guys up there call erectile dysfunction? I like it, sounds better.
I don't know if USA tarrifs hard woods, just building material (soft wood).
My understanding is Canada has so much, and so many mills that they sell it for extremely cheap compared to what America can produce it for - it caused a lot of USA saw mills to shut down, tons of jobs lost... And your housing prices dependant on Canadas materials -
So Almost every president has put tarrifs, and taken them off... Then put them back on, to try to bring it more under USA control, and to bring the jobs back to America - everytime it's put on it doesn't last though because it increases construction costs, housing prices, and ultimately gets removed either by the trade courts, or the next president because it ends up being unpopular.
But it's a perfect case of why some stuff should be tariffed - you guys shut down most of your lumber mills... If Canada said tomorrow the price is going up 200%, America would be in a world of hurt - it'd be disruptive, you guys would take a decade to recover and it'd throw your housing and other markets into chaos. Sure, America would easily survive... But it'd hurt a lot, and that's why critical goods shouldn't be reliant on other countries.
Like Canada and the dairy / agriculture that keeps getting parroted in the tarrif talks... We only tariff after a certain dollar value is exceeded, that way canadas market can't get flooded, killing our local businesses and making us reliant on USA.
