President Trump on April 20 said Canada's trade practices on dairy, lumber, and energy are unfair to the United States. All other Canadian softwood lumber companies will face the same tariff of 19.88 percent going forward. Softwood lumber is a major export of Canada, which sold $5.8 billion in lumber to the United States last year, giving it about 31.5 percent of the U.S. market. The Canadians have argued that, despite decades of investigations and litigation, U.S. claims about Canada’s unfair practices in the lumber trade have not stood up to scrutiny at the World Trade Organization. “This will put upward pressure on prices for the main consumer of softwood lumber, and that would be the housing industry.

Source: Washington Post April 25, 2017 00:04 UTC