Angie Craig: “The Commerce Department has found repeatedly that Canadian lumber is subsidized and dumped. World Trade Organization and…”

“The Commerce Department has found repeatedly that Canadian lumber is subsidized and dumped. World Trade Organization and NAFTA dispute settlement panels have definitively rejected Canada's long-time arguments that its underpricing of timber cannot be deemed a subsidy. The panels have also upheld findings that Canadian lumber is unfairly dumped in the U.S. market. The International Trade Commission has found repeatedly that the unfair imports threaten our industry with harm. President Bush was well prepared to answer the Canadian Prime Minister when they last met. The President told the Prime Minister that the problem of subsidies and dumping is caused by Canada, and the solution lies with Canada, unless Canada wants the solution to be permanent duties to offset the subsidies and the dumping. In over two decades, Canadian officials have not gotten the message, at least not in a way that takes, that this problem will not be resolved by Canada's investing hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees on more than 30 Washington law firms to circumvent U.S. laws in countless appeals to the WTO, to NAFTA panels and to the U.S. courts--several more were filed just this month.”