Posted on 01/30/2003 11:11:35 AM PST by ContentiousObjector
VANCOUVER - U.S. politicians introduced legislation Wednesday that would nearly double duties on Canadian softwood exports.
Both the Senate and the House of Representatives will consider bills that could raise U.S. duties from 27 per cent to 45 per cent.
Reports from Washington suggest the bills have wide support from both Democrats and Republicans.
But Doug McArthur, who helped the B.C. government negotiate the softwood lumber agreement, said the bills are probably just a tactic to increase pressure on Canada.
"It's very unlikely that this action, which is blatantly illegal under WTO rules and under NAFTA rules, will actually proceed, even though the Americans will threaten," said McArthur.
"If they did proceed with it, it would be struck down," he said.
He said the Americans are trying to pressure Canada into a quick settlement of the lumber dispute, using what he calls protectionist intimidation.
Canadian lumber executives were in Washington Thursday to meet with their U.S. counterparts and officials in the Bush administration.
I have lost count of how many times we have lost on this issue, the real kicker is the ‘illegal subsides’ we have been citing as justification for these tariffs simply don’t exist. Which kinda explains why we keep losing.
How the hell are we supposed to come up with a continental trade agreement when we seem hell bent on destroying our trading credibility in the name of saving jobs for union scum. If you were the president of some country would you negotiate a free trade agreement with the United States knowing you will be shutout of our markets on a political whim? - meanwhile we will accept nothing short of unfettered access to their markets.
MR.BUSH, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!
Another fine example of the true colors of the so-called "small government" republicans.
The tariff had a serious impact on Canadian mills for a while, but these producers were able to overcome much of the cost of the tariff by ramping up their production so they could produce more lumber out of the same facilities. As a result, they were able to gain efficiencies of scale that enabled them to sell the lumber in the U.S. competitively. But to meet the same consumer demand while producing more wood, the lumber industry (particular those giant producers like Boise-Cascade and Weyerhauser that own subsidiaries on both sides of the border) had to shut some of their facilities down. And you guessed it -- whenever possible, they've shut the U.S. facilities down.
Ironically, this resulted in other unforeseen circumstances -- To produce more lumber they had to cut more trees, and since they were cutting more trees they also ramped up their production of other wood products such as paper. And so the U.S. paper industry has been devastated by reduced profit margins, too.
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