{"id":29475,"date":"2025-10-22T13:10:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T03:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/?p=29475"},"modified":"2025-10-22T13:10:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T03:10:16","slug":"new-tariffs-and-duties-make-zero-sense-for-u-s-lumber-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/new-tariffs-and-duties-make-zero-sense-for-u-s-lumber-heres-why\/","title":{"rendered":"New Tariffs and Duties Make Zero Sense for U.S. Lumber \u2014 Here’s Why"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The United States\u2019 new tariffs on softwood lumber, which have added a global 10 per cent levy on top of countervailing and anti\u2011dumping duties, have raised costs for exporters and renewed scrutiny of how Washington calculates dumping margins. Taken together, the measures have effectively pushed direct and indirect taxes on Canadian suppliers above 40 per cent<\/a>, with critics arguing that the measures reflect a choice of calculation rather than clear evidence of misconduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is according to Alice Palmer, a freelance researcher and consultant with a PhD in forestry, an MBA and more than 20 years in the Canadian forest sector, who called the national\u2011security rationale \u201cludicrous,” before adding that \u201cusing national security as an excuse for tariffs is transparent political theatre.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palmer\u2019s work focuses on the Commerce Department’s use of a contested practice called \u201czeroing\u201d when it computes anti\u2011dumping margins. Zeroing treats U.S. sales priced above an exporter\u2019s domestic average as if they do not exist, preventing higher\u2011priced transactions from cancelling out lower\u2011priced ones and making ordinary short\u2011term price dips look like systematic dumping: \u201cZeroing removes the balancing effect of higher\u2011priced transactions and injects an obvious statistical bias that overstates dumping,\u201d Palmer said.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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