Softwood Lumber Dispute Deal Reached
By wselent on April 27, 2006 - 11:31pm
After 20 years of ongoing agony a 7 year managed trade deal was reached
on the heals of a deadline for the US to appeal their latest NAFTA
trade dispute panel loss.
From the Globe and Mail's Canada, U.S. reach softwood lumber deal article:
The Bush administration was anxious to get the deal done by Friday, the day after a deadline passes for the United States to request a final appeal of a NAFTA panel ruling that rejected the basis for punitive countervailing duties on Canadian lumber imports.
We'll see how this all turns out - will Canadian lumber companies be able to cut down all the Mountain Pine Beetle infested trees in time to ship them to the US market before their housing bubble collapses? Will the rising Canadian Dollar act as a new brake on Canadian exports? Stay tuned.
Good summary. I suspect the softwood mills won't have too much trouble finding a buyer for their pine-beetle culled wood. There are other customers out there. I've heard BC officials are promoting wood-framed house construction in China.
But I think the really interesting question is where this leaves our trade laws. By negotiating international trade agreements that ignore NAFTA, we've set a precedent: NAFTA is irrelevant when either nation feels it is not in their interest to abide by it.
If we ever feel like turning off the taps to the US, we can do so. If they attempt to retaliate, we can go to court. Even if they win the case, we will appeal. And appeal. And appeal again.
And if we are finally guilted into accepting some sort of agreement to restore the flow of nature's bounty southward, we will do so on our terms.
That's the American way. We could do worse than copy their tactics. NAFTA, shamfta.
Check out Jonathon Narvey's COMM CENTRE at http://jnccwriteimage.blogspot.com/
PS: The link to your homepage never works. Why is that?
The mind numbingly long chronology of this dispute is available here:
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/trade/eicb/softwood/chrono-en.asp
Chretein when he was still the PM made a joke that if we don't ship them our oil then they'll have to buy our wood.
The housing bubble in our southern neighbours is due to burst and demand for lumber will drop and we will be forced to look at alternative markets at that time.
Regarding my website - my old webserver is offline and I'm slow to get a new one setup.