Washington, March 2 US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to launch an investigation into the impact of lumber and timber imports on America's national security, a move that could lead to a new tariff imposition.
Trump directed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to initiate the probe, saying the United States faces "significant" vulnerabilities in the wood supply chain from imported timber, lumber and their derivative products being dumped onto the U.S. market.
A White House official mentioned South Korea and China as he stressed the probe will also target derivative products, including kitchen cabinets. It is to proceed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 that allows the president to impose import restrictions if an import threatens to hurt national security, reports Yonhap news agency.
On the same day, Trump also inked an executive order designed to increase domestic timber production and help reduce construction and housing costs in the U.S. Timber refers to unprocessed trees or tree parts, while lumber refers to processed wood.
"Our disastrous timber and lumber policies, the legacy of the previous administration, trigger wildfires and degrade our fish and wildlife habitats," the official told reporters in a telephonic press briefing.
"They drive up construction and housing costs, and impoverish America through large trade deficits that result from exporters like Canada, Germany and Brazil dumping lumber into our markets at the expense of both our economic prosperity and national security."
The official underscored that the administration is also zeroing in on ramifications from derivative products.
"We have situations, for example, where we're exporting our logs, and they're coming back from China in particular, and South Korea does this too... very heavily subsidised things like kitchen cabinets and the like," he said.
Asked why lumber imports pose a threat to national security, the official said that the Pentagon is a major consumer of lumber and derivative products.
"The whole issue of having a reliable source is critical. If you look at kind of the military needs, we are not building, obviously, aircraft with it, but we are certainly building all the ancillary structures that the military needs," he said.
"And it's simply a danger to this country to get increasingly dependent on a foreign supply chain or a product that we could be almost self-sufficient in."
Last month, Trump said he was weighing a 25 per cent tariff on lumber and wood products.
According to the Korea International Trade Association, South Korea's furniture exports to the U.S. were tallied at $30 million last year. Some observers say U.S. tariffs on timber imports, if imposed, might have a limited impact on Asia's fourth-largest economy.
The latest action came after Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to investigate how copper imports threaten America's national security and economic stability, in a move that could lead to the imposition of new tariffs on the metal used to produce aircraft, vehicles, ships and other military hardware.
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