Cut down U.S. housing costs by increasing the nation’s timber production. That's the strategy behind an executive order by President Trump issued Saturday, March 1, ahead of tariffs on all Canadian and Mexican goods set to take effect March 4.
The order, titled “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production,” states that timber production “is essential for crucial human activities like construction and energy production.”
“Furthermore,” it reads, “as recent disasters demonstrate, forest management and wildfire risk reduction projects can save American lives and communities.”
President Trump and his administration have argued subsidies from countries like Brazil, Germany, and Canada on their exported lumber put U.S. producers at a disadvantage.
The order spells out a timeline stretching 280 days that, for example, calls for the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service to issue “new or updated guidance regarding tools to facilitate increased timber production and sound forest management, reduce time to deliver timber, and decrease timber supply uncertainty” within the next 30 days.
The President, in the order, argues that federal policies have impeded the nation’s timber production and caused the U.S. instead to have to rely on foreign imported wood products, making the nation a net importer of such products.
“Our inability to fully exploit our domestic timber supply has impeded the creation of jobs and prosperity, contributed to wildfire disasters, degraded fish and wildlife habitats, increased the cost of construction and energy, and threatened our economic security,” the executive order states.
The move to increase domestic timber production is reminiscent of a resume item from the President's first term in office that he's continued into this second one: Trump's "Drill, baby, drill" domestic oil production policy that brought lower gas prices and made the U.S. a net exporter of oil.
Concurrent with this executive order, President Trump issued another one calling for an investigation into what he termed national security risks posed by U.S. reliance on imported wood products.
Specifically, among other actions, the President ordered the Secretary of Commerce to initiate an investigation under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 “to determine the effects on the national security of imports of timber, lumber, and their derivative products.”
The wood products industry “plays a vital role in key downstream civilian industries, including construction,” the second order reads. “Wood products are a key input used by both the civilian construction industry and the military.”
Though they aim to, ultimately, reduce downstream costs to consumers such as new home prices and home repairs, the pair of executive orders aren’t without their detractors.
From the Canadian perspective, for example, Unifor, Canada’s largest union in the private sector representing some 315,000 workers, called Trump’s order for an investigation of national security risks posed by imported wood products “a direct threat to Canadian softwood lumber and downstream wood products, placing thousands of jobs across Canada at risk.”
"To suggest our lumber and byproducts are a threat to American security is ludicrous, but Trump is going back to his playbook to twist regulations to continue sustained attacks on the Canadian softwood industry and the jobs that depend on it," stated Unifor National President, Lana Payne, in a March 2 release.
Environmental groups similarly aren’t happy. Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization, also decried Trump’s order to expand domestic logging and timber production. Blaine Miller-McFeeley, senior legislative representative on the group’s policy and legislation team, said the executive order “sets in motion a chainsaw free-for-all on our federal forests.”
Tariffs set to take effect
Meanwhile, some argue that even as Trump moves to increase U.S. domestic timber production, tariffs on Canadian and Mexican products set to take effect this week could have a detrimental effect on the cost of things like home construction and housing.
“The 25% tariff on softwood lumber products from Canada would be in addition to an effective 14.5% duty rate already in place, meaning that the overall effective Canadian lumber tariffs will rise to nearly 40%,” stated the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) when the potential tariffs were announced early last month.
The group’s Chairman, Carl Harris, noted that on his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order seeking to lower the cost of housing and increase housing supply. “This move to raise tariffs by 25% on Canadian and Mexican goods will have the opposite effect,” Harris contended.
Further, in a letter sent to the President on Jan. 31, Harris wrote that the U.S. “is facing a severe housing shortage and affordability crisis,” and “bringing down the cost of housing will require a coordinated effort to remove obstacles to construction, be they regulatory, labor, or supply-chain related.”
“However, we have serious concerns that the proposed 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico will have the opposite effect," the letter reads, "by slowing down the domestic residential construction industry."
