All available warehouses in port cities on all three coasts are full of imported plywood," a Houston-based shipping executive told the Piney Woods Journal recently. "Russia is dumping extraordinary amounts of furniture grade birch plywood into the ports of Houston, Baltimore and Los Angeles."

"Chile is dumping plywood into Tampa, Philadelphia, Mobile, Houston, and Charleston," the Houston executive explained. "Warehouses are full in most of the port cities that offer cheap warehousing for these products."

A February 22 article in the Bradenton, Florida Herald written by Duane Marsteller underscores the executive's statements. The headline of Florida's West Coast newspaper (located about 40 miles south of Tampa), says, "Booming Lumber Imports Outgrow Port."

The news article states: "Barely a year after Brazilian lumber began passing through a Port Manatee warehouse, port officials said they need to build another one. Port Manatee Forestry terminal, Inc. is importing so much lumber for retailers like Lowe's and Home Depot that it has already outgrown a leased 154,000 square foot warehouse completed last February, port officials said last Thursday in winning approval to begin working on a proposed 150,000 square foot warehouse.

"We will have to start working on it as soon as possible of they will start looking for some other place to store cargo," said David McDonald, port director.

The Bradenton Herald article further describes the lumber imports at the Gulf of Mexico Florida port, "Port Manatee Forestry terminal, Inc., a subsidiary of British conglomerate Gearbulk, Inc., imports lumber and wood products that usually end up at the big home improvement stores in the southeastern United States."

The company initially expected to import some 150,000 tons last year but wound up importing more than 211,300 tons because of the hot U.S. construction market. The company had to use five port-owned warehouses in all, generating more than $900,000 in revenue for the port."

The Port of Manatee, located on Florida's west coast is a small port in comparison to some of the major port cities in the United States through which millions of tons of lumber and plywood are entering the U.S. markets while sawmills, plywood mills, and loggers are going out of business by the dozens each month.

This Piney Woods Journal survey on imported lumber and plywood coming into the United States was in part prompted by the assertions of Louisiana Logging Council President Travis Taylor that imported lumber and plywood has captured 57% of the U.S. market. Taylor is longtime Piney Woods logger who curently serves a two year term as President of the Louisiana Loggers Council and a concurrent term on the Board of Directors of the American Loggers Council.

"The majority of the wood products coming into the country through the port cities is plywood," the Piney Woods Journal's Houston source pointed out. "Some sawn lumber is being imported from Bolivia, Brazil, Central America, and West Africa," he went on to state. "For the most part, the plywood is not pre-sold before arriving at the U.S. ports. Some of the product is under contract and moves quickly to the end comsumer. However, most of the plywood is brokered or sold from U.S. warehouses in port cities. Columbia Forest, Weyerhaeuser, Georgia-Pacific, and Louisiana-Pacific are large importers of this plywood which they then market to consumers in the USA."

Less than a year ago, Louisiana-Pacific shut down both a plywood mill and an OSB mill in Urania, Louisiana because of "slow demand" for plywood and OSB materials.

The trade deficits have hit record highs in the first two quarters of 2003 reaching $44 billion. Trade deficits for the last 12 months total $434 billion. Lowe's Home Building supply company, a known purchaser of large amounts of imported lumber and plywood, recently issued financial information stating that Lowe's had their best year ever in its 57 year history, earning a record $1.4 billion in net profit.

One of the problems in gathering data for this article on lumber imports to the States has been that the tracking data is one or two eyars old at any given point. However, it seems evident that imports of lumber in the last six months have not decreased but have increased dramatically.

Lumber import information released by Robert Flynn and Associates who are consultants to the international forest products industry, chronicles the status of the lumber imports in the late 1990s and the first half of 2000. "Through the first six months of 2000, imports of softwood from Brazil were up 38% over the same period in 1999. Imports of Chilean lumber were up 39% and New Zealand shipments gained 14%. Over the 18 months, European suppliers have achieved by far the most dramatic gains."

Tracking charts indiate that imports from Europe (just Austria, Germany, Sweden, and Finland) moved into first place in May 2000, exceeding even the Brazilian volume. Total shipments for the first six months of 2000 from these suppliers were up 149%.

Even with the dramatic increase in lumber and plywood from Europe and South America, Canada still accounted for nearly 90% of imports coming into this country two years ago at the expiration of the U.S. Canadian softwood agreement. Since that time, the volume of Canadian softwood lumber has soared according to reports, despite duties being placed on lumber from that country by the U.S. Trade Commission.

Lumber manufacturers in the U.S. have for years accused the Canadian government of subsidizing Canadian forest products by making available cheap timber.

W.J. "Rusty" Wood, President of Tolleson Lumber Company of Georgia and Chairman of the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports has stated repeatedly, "We can compete against any lumber industry in the world, but we can't compete agaist their government, too."

Wood further explained, "We can compete against Canadian mills, but not the Canadian government treasuries. The Canadian timber subsidies are estimated to be $5 billion annually. In just an eight month period from August 2000 through March 2001, 27 U.S. mills were permanently closed while only two Canadian mills were closed."

Stumpage prices in the four forestry producing regions of Canada average $40.25 versus a U.S. average in the three producing areas (West, South and North) of $142.66. The dispute between lumber interests in Canada and the United States has become heated in a war of words and money.

Both sides have spent considerable time and money to get their position across in Washington, D.C., and with the World trade Organization, which will make the final determination if any tariffs on Canadian lumber imports to this country are justified.

According to the terms of the NAFTA trade agreement that governs lumber trade between the two countries, any dispute is settled under Section 19 of the Agreement by the WTO and not the U.S. Congress, the U.S. President, or the government of Canada.

According to the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, the Coalition has spent nearly $900,000 to get their point across while the Canadian lumber interests and federal government has spent in excess of $40 million in the last 3 years. The U.S. Lumber Coalition believes that Canada began assessing a $2 per thousand board feet of lumber manufactured in Canada a few years ago in order to accumulate a war chest that would be used to push their agenda of no quotas or tariffs on lumber coming into the U.S.

The imported lumber into the U.S. from Europe and South America apparently picked up steam back in the early 1990s. Between 1996 and 1999, softwood lumber imports from Brazil and Chile jumped by more than 180%, while imports from New Zealand were up 117%. In contrast, by far the fastest growing source of U.S. lumber imports during this period was Europe, primarily Austria and Sweden, whose imports into this country leaped by nearly 2000%. Also, during this same period, in the late 1990s, imports of German softwood jumped from 2,000 cubic meters in 1998 to 32,000 cubic meters in 1999.

"One of the factors ovrlooked in the global forest product industry was the status of the German forest industry," Dr. S. Joseph Chang, Professor of Forestry at LSU told the Piney Woods Journal. "The trees planted in Germany and Austria after World War II are now 50 plus years old and a prime source for high quality lumber."

"Germany is a high tech manufacturing society and they have a great forest products manufactuing infrastructure," Dr. Chang explained. "Once the Canadians opened the door for imported lumber into the the U.S., the Europeans were quick to take advantage of the situation."

Although exact and up-to-date figures on U.S. importation of lumber and plywood are unavailable, the latest data from 2000 and early 2001, place Canadian lumber imports in the range of 38% of all U.S. lumber consumption. Europe, South America, and other countries accounted for at least 6% of U.S. lumber imports 18 months ago. A combination of Canadian lumber imports and imports of lumber from other countries totaled 44% of the lumber used throughout the United States in early 2001.

If the dramatic surge in imported lumber in the last 2 years is in the range of a 30% increase, then Taylor's assertion that 57% of the lumber being used in this country in early 2003 is imported is correct. There seems to be little doubt from the information that the Piney Woods Journal has accumulated for this article, that the increase in imports of lumber and plywood in the last 2 years has been at least 20% which would place the total imports of timber over the 50% mark.

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