U.S. Lumber Coalition Questions NAHB

The U.S. Lumber Coalition has gone on the offensive against the National Assn. of Home Builders (NAHB). 

“NAHB’s unyielding support for the Canadian softwood lumber industry, which benefits from dozens of unfair subsidies and dumps its product at the direct expense of U.S. softwood lumber producers and workers, raises questions regarding the organization’s motivation,” states Zoltan van Heyningen, executive director of the U.S. Lumber Coalition. 

“Past NAHB statements would seem to endorse the market disrupting and price suppressing effects of unfair trade. Considering the long-term detrimental impact on U.S. softwood lumber production, and the resulting negative impacts on our country’s overall lumber supply, it seems like a very short-sighted policy priority. In order to advocate for the Canadian softwood lumber industry and Canadian workers, NAHB seems willing to knowingly peddle unfounded scare tactics and claims as it fights against President Trump’s America First trade law enforcement priorities.”

U.S. Lumber Coalition notes that NAHB’s “Priced Out” analysis suggests that large increases in homebuilder profits during certain periods actually resulted in more than 4.7 million American households being priced out of the market for a median-priced new home.

“Instead of pushing a flawed analysis that could, in fact, shed a bad light on its own members, NAHB should support the enforcement of U.S. trade laws against unfairly traded Canadian lumber imports as this enforcement has boosted U.S. lumber production by over 30 billion board feet after the addition of close to 9 billion board feet of U.S. production capacity since 2016,” van Heyningen says.

The Canadian industry and Canadian “talking heads” advocating for the Canadian industry are more than happy to parrot NAHB’s misleading and false claims regarding the impact of trade law enforcement on housing affordability, according to the U.S. Lumber coalition.

“It is nothing more than an unfounded scare tactic to attack President Trump’s America First focus on trade law enforcement,” van Heyningen says. “That self-interested approach does not change the fact that continued full enforcement of the U.S. trade laws will strengthen domestic supply lines by maximizing long-term domestic production and lumber availability produced by U.S. workers to build U.S. homes.”