Canada Sells Less Lumber Outside the US Despite Hunting New Markets

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster):  Sawmillers across Canada sold less softwood lumber outside the United States over the first half of 2026 than they did a year earlier, with shipments to every market beyond the American border falling 3 per cent while US demand dropped by 1.73 million cubic metres. That is according to Statistics Canada trade data published on 4 August, which puts total exports for the six months at 13.2 million cubic metres, down 12 per cent, with the American share of the trade slipping a single percentage point to 89 per cent.

Buyers in the six destinations that grew took 77,000 cubic metres more than they did a year earlier, covering 4 per cent of the American shortfall on Wood Central’s division of the published totals. Importers everywhere else took 128,000 cubic metres less, leaving trade outside the United States 51,000 cubic metres lower at 1.5 million for the half.

Nine of every ten cubic metres Canada exports still cross the southern border, and they cross it under combined antidumping, countervailing, and Section 232 tariffs that leave most producers paying an effective rate of 34.83 per cent. US-bound shipments fell 13 per cent to 11.7 million cubic metres across the half, a steeper decline than the export trade recorded overall.

China moved the largest volume of any market outside America, taking 525,000 cubic metres, 3 per cent more than a year earlier, while Taiwan recorded the largest absolute gain of any non-US destination, adding 26,000 cubic metres to reach 187,000. Mexico grew fastest in percentage terms, rising 68 per cent to 49,000 cubic metres, and Japan ranked third among Canada’s destinations on 373,000 cubic metres, down 19 per cent.

Every one of those markets pays more per cubic metre than the United States does, with Japanese buyers taking Canadian softwood at nearly twice the American unit value across the border and German buyers at more than three times it. Germany cut its intake by 40 per cent, to 33,000 cubic metres.

It comes as Ottawa committed nearly C$130 million to 56 forest-sector projects in June, the newest tranche of a diversification effort the federal government began in August 2025, when it pledged $500 million to product and market diversification. The two largest June grants allocated $14.9 million to the Canada Wood Group for demand-building in Japan, South Korea, and China, and $13.1 million to BC’s Forestry Innovation Investment for regulatory pathways into China, India, Vietnam, the UK, and Europe.

“These actions will increase costs on our American neighbours, full stop,” Derek Nighbor, President and CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada, said in July of Washington’s proposal to put 50 per cent tariffs on a wider range of Canadian forest products from this month. The sector he represents employs nearly 200,000 people directly, according to the association, with as many again working in transport, manufacturing, and maintenance jobs behind the scenes.

The US Department of Commerce issues its final duty determination on Canadian producers before the end of August, and the recipients of Ottawa’s June grants scope their codes, testing, and market access work over the years rather than quarters. A year on from the first federal diversification package, Canada sells less lumber outside the United States than it did when the money was pledged.

Courtesy: www.woodcentral.com.au