The more lifelines governments throw to the sinking forest industry, the more tangled it gets in the quicksand of U.S. trade policy.

That policy is obvious to all now. Responding to a powerful lobby group, the U.S. wants to suffocate the Canadian forest industry and choke off all lumber imports, to the benefit of U.S. timber firms.

They are unlikely to be able to fully meet demand, but they’ll make a fortune trying, because they will get all the market instead of most of it, and because shortages cause price hikes.

The industry lobby group, the U.S. Lumber Coalition, has been immensely successful convincing politicians and other officials that Canadian lumber is a threat to the American way of life. It orchestrated billions of dollars worth of penalties on Canadian lumber imports stretching back decades.

It is now engaged in the endgame — eliminating the imports completely.

The 40-year campaign is purportedly based on the belief that Canadian softwood is unfairly subsidized because most of it comes from publicly owned land. Any government involvement in the industry is labelled a subsidy and cited by the........

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