On May 17, nearly 100 members of the U.S. House of Representatives—at AGC’s urging—called on U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to negotiate a softwood lumber trade agreement with Canada.

Currently, the U.S. and Canada lack such an agreement. Meanwhile, lumber prices have nearly tripled since last spring. AGC believes the Biden Administration can play a constructive role in mitigating this growing threat to multifamily housing and other construction sectors by urging domestic lumber producers to ramp up production to ease growing shortages and making it a priority to work with Canada on a new softwood lumber agreement.