Forestry & Logging NAICS 113

Mar 28, 2025 - Southern Yellow Pine Futures to Trade on Wall Street

• Exchange operator CME Group will begin trading in Southern yellow pine futures on March 31, 2025, according to The Wall Street Journal. The move comes as more sawmills migrate from Canada to the US to mitigate the effects of rising tariffs. Giving US-grown Southern lumber their own futures contracts will allow sawmills and other forest product industries to better manage their exposure to price fluctuations. Before the launch of Southern yellow pine futures (ticker: SYP), lumber futures excluded southern pine and were based on deliveries of Northern conifer boards, much of it Canadian spruce, pine, and fir. The new Southern yellow pine futures will be settled in cash, allowing speculators to trade without holding lumber inventories.
• Rising tariffs on Canadian lumber imports could prompt more of Canada’s sawmill operators to move some of their operations south of the border, according to Reuters. Tariffs on Canadian lumber could increase to 40% if the Trump administration’s proposed 25% tariff on Canadian imports goes into effect on top of existing levies of 14.5%. The administration has paused tariffs on goods that comply with the United Sates-Mexico-Canada Agreement until April 2. Canadian firms have decamped to the US South in recent years, attracted by the region’s abundant and inexpensive timber supplies on public lands. Much of Canada’s timberlands are owned by the federal government.

• Trade strife may increase lumber prices, which could pinch the margins of prefabricated wood building manufacturers if higher prices can’t be passed on to customers. On March 1, Trump initiated an investigation into whether US imports of Canadian lumber posed a national security threat, according to The New York Times. The inquiry could enable Trump to enact fresh tariffs on lumber imports from Canada on top of a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports that went into effect on March 4 but was paused for a month two days later for products that are compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The White House claims the US has the resources to be self-sufficient in its lumber needs, but US sawmills can’t compete with imports dumped unfairly on the US market. White House officials said lumber supply is a national security issue because the US military is a significant lumber consumer.
• The Northwest Forest Plan (NFP) Advisory Committee has amended a 30-year-old plan for managing 24.5 million acres of federally managed lands in the Northwest, according to the US Forest Service. The committee of 21 scientists, loggers, conservationists, and tribal and government representatives published 184 recommendations to address changing conditions and guide the future of endangered forests in the Northwest. While 113 recommendations are dedicated to Tribal and Indigenous inclusion – left out in the 1994 NFP – the committee also redefined old-growth forests as any stand established before 1825 and recommended prohibiting logging in those stands. The committee also published 26 fire resilience recommendations, including reintroducing fire on the landscape through controlled burns. The Forest Service said it plans to release the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the amendment to the NFP in October.