Lumber tariffs still shifting

A tariff on lumber works like a tollbooth on the border: every truckload of Canadian softwood that crosses into the United States gets hit with extra charges before a builder ever sees it. On April 9, the U.S. Commerce Department posted a preliminary rate of about 24.83% in its latest review, down from a rate above 35% that Canadian producers had been facing. (uslumbercoalition.org) That sounds like relief, but it is only a preliminary step, not the end of the fight. British Columbia industry groups said the new number is expected to be finalized in August, and they warned that companies still have to plan around months of uncertainty. (treefrogcreative.ca) The reason this keeps showing up in home budgets is simple: the United States buys a huge amount of wood from Canada because American sawmills do not cover all demand. A Congressional Research Service report said the United States imported about $23 billion of wood products in 2024, and nearly half came from Canada. (congress.gov) So even when the tariff rate falls, the border charge still acts like a tax folded into framing lumber, trusses, plywood substitutes, and other wood-heavy jobs. Ontario said this week that duties near 35% had been inflating construction costs, disrupting supply chains, and making housing less affordable on both sides of the border. (news.ontario.ca) There is another wrinkle: the headline tariff cut does not mean every cost tied to lumber suddenly drops. The U.S. Lumber Coalition said the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties are separate from an additional 10% tariff the president imposed on softwood lumber under Section 232, which is a national-security trade law. (uslumbercoalition.org) That is why Canadian producers are calling the process broken even in the middle of a lower preliminary ruling. British Columbia’s Independent Wood Processors Association said the posted rate is “just short of 25 per cent,” but total duties can still stay close to 35% once the separate 10% tariff is counted in. (620ckrm.com) And mills are not just dealing with Washington. A Kentucky sawmill told Spectrum News that diesel costs jumped on top of tariff pressure, creating what owner Ray White called a “perfect storm” for a family business in Rowan County that had already been losing money for months. (spectrumnews1.com) Diesel matters because logs, lumber, and finished loads move on trucks, loaders, and heavy equipment that drink fuel all day. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said the national average diesel price was $5.64 a gallon for the week of April 6, 2026, and its April outlook said diesel could average more than $5.80 a gallon this month. (eia.gov 1) (eia.gov 2) Put those two pressures together and you get the weird pricing people see on the ground: a tariff headline says costs may ease later, while a freight bill says costs are rising right now. That is why a contractor pricing a deck in April 2026 can get a different answer from the same yard than they got a few weeks earlier. (spectrumnews1.com) (treefrogcreative.ca) The practical takeaway is not that lumber is about to crash or explode on one ruling. It is that the U.S.-Canada softwood fight is still being argued in reviews, appeals, and separate tariff tracks at the same time fuel costs are jerking transportation bills around, so spring building quotes can move even when the headline sounds like good news. (congress.gov) (uslumbercoalition.org)