Canadian lumber industry lambastes U.S. move on duties
thestar.com
Commerce department surprises with only small reduction
Leaders question fate of talks on negotiated softwood pact
VANCOUVER—A U.S. decision to make only a small cut in punitive duties on Canadian softwood lumber imports could jeopardize tentative efforts to renew talks on the long-standing trade dispute.
The Canadian lumber industry was furious yesterday with a U.S. commerce department final determination on duty after completing an administrative review of the tariffs in place since May, 2002.
John Allan, president of the British Columbia Lumber Trade Council, said the new rates and the way they were calculated demonstrate how badly the commerce department's process is compromised politically.
The ruling "shows there is nothing in the commerce arsenal that they will not pull out to basically beat us into the ground until we're all bankrupt," he said at a news conference.
Canadian industry and government officials had expected the rates, provisionally set at 27.2 per cent, to be cut in half after the commerce department set a preliminary rate of 13.22 per cent in June.
In a surprise move yesterday, the department halved the 8.43 per cent anti-dumping component but shaved less than 2 per cent off the 18.79 per cent countervailing-duty portion, for a Canada-wide average of 21.21 per cent.
In arriving at the new rates, the commerce department abandoned the calculation method used in June. The department applied a new methodology, including a separate formula for British Columbia lumber that Canadians say violates previous international-trade rulings.
The new rates were announced two days before a planned meeting in Chicago for a select group of Canadian and American lumber chief executives.
It was to be the first informal feeler to see whether common ground exists on which to renew negotiations toward a long-term solution to the decades-old trade irritant.
But industry leaders said yesterday that session now is in jeopardy.
"This is not my decision to make, and I think the Canadian CEOs need to talk amongst themselves and see where they go from here," Allan said.
"I think cutting a deal is just the wrong thing to do right now, given these rates, in the sense the Americans have basically stuck it to us.
"When they can't win on the fair battleground that's laid out in front of them, they always revert to these political decisions."
Carl Grenier of the Montreal-based Free Trade Lumber Council, said the commerce department decision was a clear attempt to pressure the Canadians into negotiations.
"It's basically telling us that, no matter what you do, even if you win on the legal side, you're going to have to come back and do a deal with us," he said in an interview.
"Personally, I think it does jeopardize the success of that CEOs meeting."
The chief executive officers are expected to decide by today whether to attend, but Grenier said going now might send the wrong signal to the Americans.
Grenier said it's a tried and true strategy: Drag out the costly process of fighting the duties so Canadian exporters will see a compromise settlement as worthwhile.
Twice before, Canada reached deals to short-circuit previous U.S. lumber-industry trade complaints.
CANADIAN PRESS |
