As forklifts moved across the frozen campus of Pleasant River Lumber’s Enfield sawmill on a bitter January morning, co-owners Jason Brochu and his brother, Chris Brochu, discussed what comes next for a mill that they say is benefiting from new trade protection. The brothers said U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber imports—raised by the Trump administration last year—have given them enough confidence to expand production in Maine, even as they see other parts of the industry wrestling with uncertainty and weaker demand.
Pleasant River Lumber has invested more than $100 million to build and upgrade its Enfield operation since 2020. On Jan. 21, the brothers were preparing for a second manufacturing shift that started later that month, and Jason Brochu said the mill is also planning additional capacity, including a new garage. He argued the situation reflects “the benefit of trade protection leading to investment, which is going to make the mill stronger,” describing the policy shift as changing conditions in favor of Maine sawmills that have long feared a power imbalance with Canadian competitors.
The Brochus said Canadian companies historically outbid Maine sawmills for timber harvested in the state and then undercut American prices after exporting finished lumber back across the border. Under that pattern, even investment in the U.S. could be difficult to sustain when Canadian supply could reach the same buyers. They said the newer tariffs could help shift that status quo by increasing domestic demand for softwood products—spruce and fir lumber in particular—that the Enfield mill produces.
But Maine’s forest products economy does not move in lockstep. Not all sawmill leaders are bullish about the tariffs’ longer-term effects, and some focus on how housing activity and inflation can overwhelm any trade-protection benefits. Alden Robbins, vice president of Searsmont-based Robbins Lumber, said uncertainty is the core problem for businesses that need stable markets and predictable trade relationships, adding, “I can appreciate the effort to bring some manufacturing back to this country … but obviously there will be short-term pain while those changes take effect,” and asking, “How do you make a plan to break ground on something if in another couple years that might change all around?”
Part of the divide, Kingsley and other operators said, is tied to the difference between softwood and hardwood markets. A Maine consultant, Eric Kingsley, said the forestry industry is in a “sort of slow-motion markets crisis” after tariffs threw the market into disarray and higher interest rates cooled housing construction, a key driver of sawmill revenue. Kingsley said the hardest pressure is likely to fall on hardwood lumber manufacturers, whose products are used for furniture and flooring, noting that U.S. softwood prices have been more stable overall than hardwood prices, which he said have declined alongside weaker foreign demand.
Hardwood operators said retaliatory tariffs from Canada compounded the strain. At Lumbra Hardwoods in Milo, Stephen Lumbra, the company’s vice president, said the company was already dealing with falling domestic demand when the Trump administration increased tariffs on Canadian lumber last year, and that reciprocal tariffs implemented by Canada then damaged its foreign sales. Lumbra said one of his biggest customers is a flooring company in Quebec and that “new Canadian tariffs cost him more than $1,000 in duties on every load of lumber” shipped there, describing the relationship as “soured” by tariffs.
Lumbra said even after Canada repealed some tariffs last summer, it took months for profits to level out and for business relations to return to normal. He said he also feels frustration about the premise that tariffs would boost U.S. manufacturing when demand for his hardwood lumber remains weak. “American hardwood lumber production is a third of what it was in 2006,” Kingsley said, and Lumbra said he does not expect it to rebound soon, adding, “A lot of people would tell me, ‘Just sell your lumber in the U.S.,’ … Well, I can’t because nobody wants it.”
In Enfield, Pleasant River Lumber has leaned into strategies to manage price swings on the softwood side, including a $3.5 million saw from Finnish company HewSaw that scans incoming timber hundreds of times per second to identify imperfections and then uses real-time market prices to decide how to cut logs for the most valuable dimensions. Jason Brochu said the speed and flexibility of that equipment helped make the expansion feasible, and he tied the decision to expand again to tariffs that, in his view, have increased protection from Canadian imports.
Meanwhile, Robbins said the tariffs’ impact is harder to separate from other pressures. He cited rising energy costs, Canada’s initial retaliatory tariffs, and volatile timber prices as factors that have muddled the company’s outlook, saying the tariffs “might play a bigger role, but, because demand is somewhat muted, it’s hard to say.” He said Robbins Lumber sells softwoods through sawmills in Searsmont and East Baldwin and that loggers often prioritize selling pulpwood when demand rises, which Robbins said can reduce softwood production. He also described these markets as “fickle,” with demand shifts affecting which logs get processed.
For Pleasant River Lumber, the immediate outcome is investment and added shifts, while for much of the broader Maine wood-products sector, the story is uncertainty—especially for companies anchored in hardwoods and export relationships. Both outcomes underscore how tariff policy can reshape incentives quickly in one part of an industry while leaving other segments facing planning challenges, retaliatory costs, and a housing-driven slowdown in demand.
This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.