Prospects for U.S. Trade in Timber Products: Imports

This paper is the second in a series of four that examine U.S. trade prospects and their implications to the year 2030. The growth of U.S. imports of timber products over the last 2 decades was based primarily on development of previously untapped timber resources in Canada and southeast Asia. After 2000, the ability of the United States to increase and perhaps even to maintain imports of hardwood and softwood timber products will depend on the willingness and ability of other countries to manage their timber resources more intensively. Future U.S. imports of timber products will also depend on the demand situation in other countries more so than in the last 2 decades. Over the next two decades, Western Europe and Japan will tend to be more competitive for Canadian and Southeast Asian supplies of both solid and fiber-base products. The timber demand and supply situations in other countries suggest increasing rather than decreasing interdependencies in wood timber markets. For most products, USDA Forest Service projections indicate an increasing share of the U.S. market being supplied by domestic sources as opposed to imports. Nonetheless, imports of softwood lumber, pulp, newsprint, and hardwood products will continue to be important sources of supply to meet U.S. needs.

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