U.S. Lumber Coalition: Trump Administration Holds Key to Addressing Canada's Market-Disrupting Structural Excess Capacity in Lumber

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Statistics Canada has confirmed that Canada's softwood lumber market diversification 'program' is failing to yield results, despite Canada's fanfare of public statements and travel by provincial officials. The agency reports that Canadian lumber shipments to non-U.S. markets have declined once again over the last six months, confirming that Canadian producers remain more dependent than ever on unloading and dumping their multibillion board feet of excess lumber capacity into the United States.

Canada's structural excess lumber capacity remains a huge burden on U.S. manufacturers and workers hit by Canada's unfair trade practices and as such must be dismantled through the Administration's strong America First trade policies. The continuation of strong antidumping and countervailing duty enforcement coupled with President Trump's highly effective Section 232 tariff measures is the answer.

"President Trump holds the key to addressing Canada's massive excess lumber capacity, which is at the center of Canada's unfair dumping and subsidization practices that have been so detrimental to U.S. workers, companies and communities in the forestry sector," stated Zoltan van Heyningen, Executive Director of the U.S. Lumber Coalition, adding that "Canada not only feels entitled to the U.S. market, but it has created the very structural problem that it continually expects the U.S. to absorb. Having built up an industry through billions of dollars in subsidies to produce some 27 billion board feet of lumber despite only consuming an estimated 7 billion board feet, Canadian producers must unload about 75 percent of their lumber production into other markets. As a result, an estimated 90 percent of Canada's excess capacity is dumped into the U.S. market with the support of massive Canadian subsidies."

"Canada's deep dependency on the U.S. market unfortunately has meant that U.S. producers and workers have borne the brunt of Canada's unfair trade practices. However, it also means that President Trump has the power to resolve the ongoing problem of Canada's excess lumber capacity through continued strong trade law enforcement and policy actions," stated Steve Swanson, CEO of Swanson Group and Chair of the U.S. Lumber Coalition.

"President Trump's strong commitment to fully enforcing our trade laws and using all possible tools to address Canada's unfair trade practices are curtailing unfairly traded lumber imports and allowing the domestic industry to invest for the future. We are starting to see the beginnings of a right-sizing of the industry in Canada. Continued strong trade policies will allow the U.S. industry to continue to regain market share to fully supply our own market, and use U.S. raw materials to produce U.S. lumber to build U.S. homes," concluded Swanson.

U.S. lumber community voices on President Trump's Trade Policies Boosting U.S. Forest Products Manufacturing – Short Video

Since August 2025 alone, Canada and its provincial governments have announced an estimated C$2.57 billion in forestry-specific subsidies and C$9.9 billion in total aid – New Subsidies Tracker Summary List

About the U.S. Lumber Coalition
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The U.S. Lumber Coalition is an alliance of large and small softwood lumber producers from around the country, joined by their employees and woodland owners, working to address Canada's unfair lumber trade practices. Our goal is to serve as the voice of the American lumber community and effectively address Canada's unfair softwood lumber trade practices. The Coalition supports the full enforcement of the U.S. trade laws to allow the U.S. industry to invest and grow to its natural size without being impaired by unfairly traded imports. Continued full enforcement of the U.S. trade laws will strengthen domestic supply lines by maximizing long-term domestic production and lumber availability produced by U.S. workers to build U.S. homes. For more information, please visit the Coalition's website at www.uslumbercoalition.org.

CONTACT: Zoltan van Heyningen
[email protected] | 202-805-9133

SOURCE The U.S. Lumber Coalition