President Trump started an investigation on Saturday into whether the import of Hout threatens the national security of America, a step that will probably cause relations with Canada, the greatest exporter from wood to the United States.
The president gave up his trade secretary, Howard Lutnick, to conduct the investigation. The results of the investigation can enable the president to apply rates to comfort the input. An official of the White House refused to say how long the investigation would take.
An Executive Memorandum signed by Mr Trump ordered the research and was accompanied by another document that, according to the White House officials, would expand the volume of the wood that is offered for sale, the supply and increasing offer and help ensure that the wooden prices do not rise.
The trade research will probably rage Canada. Some of his citizens have called for boycots of American products about Mr Trump's plans to impose rates for all Canadian imports that is on Tuesday on Tuesday. The president, who is also planning to touch Mexico with similar rates, says that the taxes are punishment for not stopping the flow of drugs and migrants to the United States.
Many Canadians have disputed Mr. Trump's claim that Fentanyl is flows from his country to the United States.
Canada and the United States have had protection of protection in the wood industry for decades. The countries have protected their own industries with rates and other trading measures and argued about the legitimacy of those measures in disputes, both under the North -American free trade agreement and in the World Trade Organization.
Canada provided $ 28 billion in wood to the United States in 2021 – the most recent annual statistics were available at the US International Trade Commission – or almost half of all American wood imports. Canada is far followed by China, Brazil and Mexico as import sources.
The United States also exported almost $ 10 billion wood to Canada in 2021, as well as $ 6.5 billion to Mexico.
White House officials said that wood was an industry in which the United States should be almost completely self -sufficient on the basis of its resources, but that American woodmills were undermined by cheap imports of bad actors, some of whom were alleged allies.
Peter Navarro, the senior counselor for trade and production, said in a phone call with reporters on Friday that “disastrous” wood and wood policy “increases construction and housing costs and the impoverishing America due to large trade shortages that are the result of exporters such as Canada, Germany and Brazil dumping wood” on the American market.
“That will stop today with a few Trumpian actions that have been designed to strengthen both the supply of and demand for American wood and wood,” he said.
If they are not compensated by a matching increase in the offer, wood rates would probably increase the price of imported wood and increase prices for different industries, in particular construction. The American research will include derived wood products, such as kitchen cabinets.
The research is likely to raise questions and raise pushback about whether Hout import is really a threat to national security.
The president has also started national security investigations into steel, aluminum and copper, but those metals are used directly by the army to make aircraft, ships and weapons. Asked about the justification of national security, the White House official said that the army was an important consumer of wood.
Alan Rappeport contributed reporting.
