U.S. Settles Rift With Canada on Lumber
TORONTO, April 27 -- Canada and the United States announced a tentative agreement Thursday to end a long-festering dispute over imports of Canadian lumber, and Washington said it would repay $4 billion of $5 billion in tariffs collected on lumber that have been hotly contested by Ottawa.
But the agreement, on a two-decade-old issue that has helped sour Canadian attitudes toward the United States, is unlikely to end the controversy. Political opponents in Canada lambasted the deal as a sellout, and critics immediately attacked the plan.
The Canadian government engaged in a day of furious lobbying to try to put down domestic opposition to the deal.
At day's end, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appeared in parliament in Ottawa to argue that Canada had won the dispute. "The United States has accepted key conditions" in the negotiations, Harper said. "This is a good day."
He also announced that the chief lumber-producing provinces would support the deal, which he called "an advantageous agreement for all Canadians . . . and crucial for the industry."
His claims of success were immediately attacked by critics, who complained that the United States should have been required to repay all of the $5 billion in tariffs that international trade bodies have ruled were collected illegally.
"Where is the elusive $1 billion that is missing?" demanded Bill Graham, the leader of the opposition Liberal Party, adding that Harper had "caved in under the pressure of President Bush and the American lumber barons."
Under the seven-year accord, on which a few details still remain unresolved, shipments of pine, spruce, birch and other softwood lumber from Canada to the United States would be subject to no quotas or tariffs at current prices. But if prices fall below specified thresholds, export taxes or volume caps would be activated to limit the inflow of Canadian lumber. Provincial governments would have the option of imposing relatively steep taxes ranging from 5 to 15 percent, depending on how low prices fall, or they could restrict the quantities of exports while imposing more modest taxes.
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U.S. Settles Rift With Canada on Lumber
