Ethics Newsline®

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

OTTAWA
Both Canada and the United States are claiming victory at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the heated dispute over softwood lumber imports from Canada.

A WTO panel last week upheld the anti-dumping duties imposed on Canadian softwood lumber imports. An earlier panel had ruled that low stumpage fees paid by Canadian forestry companies for harvesting softwood lumber on Crown lands caused softwood lumber products to sell at an unreasonably low price in the United States.

However, the WTO panel held that the U.S. government’s calculations of the amount of the duties were in error and had to be recalculated following WTO guidelines.

This was the result of the U.S. trade officials not including in their calculations sales of softwood lumber in the States at above-market prices.

Existing and threatened trade sanctions by the United States on Canadian softwood lumber have resulted in thousands of layoffs in the forestry industry in Canada and the closure of several lumber operations.