Will A Stick Fight Lead To Bigger Battles

From a small regional jet descending toward Vancouver International Airport, global trade looks vigorous. Out the left windows, passengers see huge bulk freighters riding at anchor in the harbor, waiting their turns to load Canadian raw materials destined for mills and construction sites in Asia. Out the opposite windows, vast rafts of logs harvested in the province’s interior fastness bob in the muddy water of the Fraser River awaiting shipment to the US and elsewhere. Between these waters, new construction pushes against the urban rainforest of Stanley Park with giant cranes swinging to and fro like alchemists’ wands turning Asian capital into skyscrapers. In the distance, farmland stretches out south and east like a vast patchwork quilt across the invisible line demarcating Canada from the US.

But though this corner of Canada has grown rich over the past two decades by exporting natural resources while importing human and financial capital, the future of that prosperity looks less certain for reasons that may have implications far beyond western Canada. The US Department of Commerce just recently announced a duty on Canadian softwood lumber imports ranging as high as 24%, with most Canadian lumber producers paying 19.88%. The move echoes the US lumber industry’s claim that Canada subsidizes its lumber exports. The decision also indicates that protectionist sentiment in Washington, DC has shifted from the realm of rhetoric into the realm of action on specific policies, even those pertaining to the nation’s largest trading partner.