Wilbur Ross: Unfair Trade in Milk, Lumber Led to 'Collision Course' with Canada
United States Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross on Tuesday says the U.S. has put Canada on notice for not paying its fair share on trade.
“The way it works in Canada is that the provinces own the sanding timber and they charge very, very low, way below market fees for what’s called stumpage, mainly the right to cut the trees down," Ross told the FOX Business Network's Lou Dobbs. "That in turn lets the Canadians ship lumber into the U.S. at a subsidized price.”
Ross said the U.S. was now fining Canada for unfair trade practices.
“The preliminary finding was a fine of 1 billion dollars per year and since we are imposing it retroactively for 90 days when we put them on notice that will be an extra one time 250 million and they began paying those fines today,” he said.
Ross believes the previous administration wasn’t “emphasizing” enforcement on trade, which in turn led to the conflict with Canada.
“The diafiltered milk and the lumber, if we had a really well functioning trade agreement why would those have to come to this sort of collision course,” he said.