As the second half of 2026 gets underway, the North American lumber market is being shaped by four forces that rarely line up at once: a tariff regime growing more complex, a domestic sawmill base that keeps shrinking despite political pressure to grow it, supply chains still vulnerable to disruption, and prices that, after more than two years of disciplined output, are finally settling down. None of this has produced the manufacturing boom that higher tariffs were supposed to trigger. Instead it has produced a more fragmented market, where what matters most isn't the size of the tariff ...