"It's out-and-out evasion and fraud," Mr. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports in Washington, said some Canadian companies are packaging ordinary boards as rougher headed fascia or notched lumber in order to get it into the United States duty free. John Ragosta, a lawyer and lobbyist for the U.S.
#LUMBER EXPORTER FREE#
It has accused Canadian lumber producers of making minor modifications to lumber just to get their products into the United States duty free and skirt the agreement.
lumber industry said that if anyone is cheating it's Canada. Some producers in British Columbia have warned that as many as 20 lumber products could eventually face a similar fate in the United States, threatening up to $2-billion in trade for Canada and 8,000 jobs in the province.īut the U.S. The case is now under appeal by a Canadian lumber exporter. The WCO had urged the United States not to go ahead with the re-classification last year. Customs of deliberately ignoring the advice of the World Customs Organization in the earlier disputed case over pre-drilled lumber. market.Īdding to the intrigue, some Canadian lumber industry officials recently accused U.S. Exports above that level are subject to export fees of $50 or $100 per 1,000 board feet, often pricing those products out of the U.S. Lumber Agreement, Canadian producers are limited to shipping 14.7 billion board feet of lumber a year to the United States duty-free. The United States has already successfully reclassified pre-drilled studs (boards drilled with small holes for threading electrical wiring) and has proposed doing the same for notched studs (boards with notches for hanging wiring). Siding is the third major category of Canadian lumber to face reclassification in the past year. The move could result in prohibitive duties being imposed on as much as $200-million a year worth of Canadian lumber, which now enters the United States duty-free. Customs move, which targets so-called rougher-headed fascia-boards planed or roughened for use as siding. Interested groups had until last Friday to file their objections to the U.S. She also warned that the decision would have "a profound effect" on the international system of harmonized customs categories, which control billions of dollars worth of global trade every day. "The effect of this proposed reclassification would result in a restraint of trade, as it would than unfairly require Canadian exporters to provide permits to be able to ship to the United States," Ms. "Manipulation of the classification system creates a dangerous precedent," Ms. lumber interests, Colleen Swords, minister-counsellor at the Canadian embassy in Washington, wrote in a letter to a U.S.
#LUMBER EXPORTER SERIES#
move appears to be part of "a series of intended reclassifications" made under intense pressure from U.S. market, a senior Canadian trade official has charged. lumber agreement is part of a deliberate pattern of denying access to the U.S. decision to reclassify siding boards so that they fall under the strict quotas in the 1996 Canada- U.S. Ottawa has accused the United States of illegally manipulating international customs rules to thwart Canadian lumber exports.Ī U.S. The following article is excerpted from "The Globe and Mail" issue of 13 April 1999. of Illegal Changes to Customs regarding Lumber Exports
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