Katrina and Softwood Lumber

[August1991]

Would it be mercenary if the Canadian government now reminded the US administration that imposing a duty on imported building materials, and making them more costly to ordinary Americans, is not a good idea when many, many people will have to rebuild their homes?

This duty makes lumber producers in Oregon and Washington richer, at the expense of people who have lost everything in Louisiana and Mississippi.

[PocketRocket]

Heh heh.

Better than "reminding" the administration, would be to run a series of tv and radio ads in the southern states which were hardest hit.

Something along the lines of "And in a effort to help our American brethren rebuild, we have reduced the price of our lumber to (whatever it is we actually make on it before the tariffs are imposed)".

Instead of trying to browbeat the States from this end, use some PR to engineer a hue-and-cry from the American public, who currently are largely unaware of, and uninterested in the tariffs.

[Toro]

Now is not the time nor the place. In the future, yes. But wait until the crisis has passed.

[Argus]

Would it be mercenary if the Canadian government now reminded the US administration that imposing a duty on imported building materials, and making them more costly to ordinary Americans, is not a good idea when many, many people will have to rebuild their homes?

This duty makes lumber producers in Oregon and Washington richer, at the expense of people who have lost everything in Louisiana and Mississippi.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't think the current administration cares about anything more than its own well-being. The Republicans would sell their own mothers and daughters if the lumber producers of Oregon and Washington paid enough.