The M&E DISPATCH // 193

Free Trade, At Last. Canada's forest products finally enter the United States duty-free.

July 17, 2026

The Friday Dispatch

Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio announced this week that he is introducing a bill to sanction Canada over wildfire smoke. He is calling it the CANADA FIRE Act, and I want to address his concerns directly, exporter to customer.

Senator. Buddy. Let me explain how we got here.

For decades, Canada has attempted to ship you trees the normal way. By rail. By truck. Sawn, planed, kiln-dried, stamped, and stacked on flatcars pointed politely south. Your response was to tax them. The current bill on Canadian softwood runs about 45 percent, once you stack the anti-dumping duties, the countervailing duties, and the fresh 10 percent tariff your president added last October on national security grounds. National security. The threat assessment concluded that two-by-fours from Chetwynd endanger the republic. Your builders' association is begging you to stop. You have collected more than eight billion dollars protecting America from framing lumber.

So the market adapted. You wouldn't take our trees by rail, so this year they are arriving by air. Unsawn. Some assembly required.

I'll grant the logistics need work. Delivery windows are vague. The product arrives pre-carbonized. But note what does not appear on the invoice: no stumpage disputes, no Commerce Department administrative review, no Section 232. Smoke is the only Canadian forest product that crosses your border tariff-free. You built that incentive structure yourselves, gentlemen. We just watched.

Now, the bill. It is a genuine piece of work. It would freeze the assets of Canadian officials, revoke their visas, and declare our ambassador persona non grata until the President personally certifies that American air quality has held below an AQI of 100 for 90 consecutive days. Ninety days of certified air. Congressman John James of Michigan, who happens to be running for governor, adds that he wants compensation. Not apologies. Compensation. He is invoicing us for the wind while his customs service invoices us for the wood. Pick a lane, John. Preferably a rail lane.

Some context from the supplier side. Northwestern Ontario has about 148 active fires right now. One of them, Fort Frances 14, is past 55,000 hectares. Canada has more than 800 burning nationally. Ontario has asked Ottawa for help evacuating remote First Nations communities by air. Moreno's office says we failed at forest thinning, prescribed burns, and "enforcement against arson," which suggests he believes the boreal forest is a municipal park with insufficient patrols. It is a landmass the size of Western Europe and the lead suspect is lightning. Good luck serving the warrant.

And my favourite line item in the whole file: part of the smoke over the Midwest this week is coming from the Thumb Fire. The Thumb Fire is in Minnesota. That is domestic supply, Senator. American smoke, produced by American forests, moving in interstate commerce. If it's compensation you're after, Duluth is closer than Ottawa and the AQI there hit 682.

Prime Minister Carney responded to all this in French, which is the diplomatic equivalent of putting the call on hold, and noted the nerve of being lectured on emissions by a government banning wind farms.

The offer stands. Drop the duties and we will happily go back to shipping the trees horizontal, on steel wheels, at posted rates, with paperwork. It's a better product. It holds up a house. The airborne version holds up nothing but your legislative calendar.

Until then, the boreal will keep filling orders the only way your tariff schedule allows. Rail or air, gentlemen. Your choice. It always was.

Filed from under an orange sky in Ontario, where the export numbers have never looked hazier.

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Out of office: Away from the office today, in line at Home Depot since Thursday night to buy HEPA furnace filters like it’s toilet paper in 2020 all over again.
You don’t need 12 of them, Henry, you’re not going to run out!

Lee