The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) announced this week it has formed an alliance as to provide the American consumers with a stable and reliable supply of lumber and building materials, once the Softwood Lumber Agreement expired in October 2015. In addition to the NAHB, founder members of the American Alliance of Lumber Consumers (AALC) include the National Retail Federation and the National Lumber & Building Material Dealers Association.
The current share of Canadian imported lumber in the US market is 28 per cent (three-year average), and any new trade agreement has the great potential to disrupt the stability of the market and reduce the current share of imports.
AALC believes restrictive trade agreements that impose, quotas, tariffs and other border tax measures have the potential to create large and unpredictable swings in the cost and supply of lumber and other key building materials, which hurts housing affordability.