Defazio, Walden Applaud Wto Ruling Against Unfair Canadian Softwood Lumber Trade Practices

Statement

Reps. Peter DeFazio (OR-04) and Greg Walden (OR-02) today applauded the decision by a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement panel to uphold the United States' anti-dumping measures against unfairly subsidized Canadian softwood lumber imports.

"Today's ruling gives the U.S. softwood lumber industry the chance to continue to compete on a level playing field against the Canadian industry," said Rep. Peter DeFazio. "The panel's decision to reject prior WTO findings is a critical win against unfair practices and will allow the U.S. to continue its fight to protect manufacturing jobs in the Pacific Northwest and throughout the United States."

"The ruling from the World Trade Organization affirms our efforts to stand up for the hardworking Oregonians at lumber mills across our state," said Rep. Greg Walden. "I applaud President Trump and his administration for their commitment to push back against the dumping of Canadian-subsidized lumber into U.S. markets. This unfair trade practice undermined the softwood lumber market and threatened good, family-wage jobs in our state and throughout the Pacific Northwest. The U.S. industry went through the process, proved their case, and duties were put in place to help level the playing field. I'm glad to see the WTO uphold these actions and look forward to continuing to work alongside the Administration and my Oregon colleagues to strengthen manufacturing jobs in Oregon and throughout the United States."

In September 2017, Rep. DeFazio submitted testimony to a hearing held by the ITC calling for a ruling against unfair softwood lumber trade practices employed by the Canadian lumber industry. To view a PDF version of the testimony, click here.

Oregon is the largest producer of softwood lumber in the United States.

BACKGROUND

Since the expiration of the most-recent Softwood Lumber Agreement, negotiations between the U.S. and Canada to regulate softwood trade have been unsuccessful, leaving the U.S. market unprotected against the increasing flood of illegally subsidized Canadian imports. After no new agreement was reached by late 2016, representatives from the U.S. timber industry had no choice but to petition the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to file antidumping and countervailing duties against Canadian lumber producers. Under long-standing U.S. trade law, U.S. industries have a right to offsetting duties against illegally subsidized and dumped imports which threaten to put domestic producers out of business.

The U.S. Department of Commerce in 2017 investigated the softwood lumber market and found that the Canadian government heavily subsidizes their softwood lumber production, artificially lowering production costs for Canadian mills and ultimately allowing them to dump softwood lumber products into the U.S. at below fair-value prices, putting at-risk the 350,000 jobs directly and indirectly associated with the U.S. sawmill and wood preservation industry. New duties enforced by the Commerce Department have helped to counteract Canada's unfair trade practices by enforcing antidumping and countervailing duties of between 9.92 and 23.76 percent on Canadian softwood imports.

Source