Abstract
Over the past 30 years the U.S.–Canadian softwood lumber trade dispute has resulted in three managed trade agreements that have not been voted on in the U.S. Congress. Nevertheless, U.S. Senators have played an important role in shaping the political environment that has nurtured these agreements. In this paper we construct a lumber influence index based on 14 known events between 2001 and 2006 and analyze what factors influenced a senator’s decision to publically call for restricting Canadian lumber imports and to adopt the 2006 Softwood Lumber Agreement. Our results show that the size of the wood products manufacturing industry in a state, campaign contributions, logrolling, and ideology played a significant role and that interest group politics is prevalent in this dispute.
Keywords
International Trade Tariffs Non Tariffs Barriers
Citation
Godwin, Joseph; Zhang, Daowei. 2012. Political pressure: An examination of U S Senators actions in restricting Canadian softwood lumber imports. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Vol. 60(2): 12 pages.: 263-274. 10.1111/j.1744-7976.2012.01247.x