​Is It Time for Canadian Forest Products Firms to Focus on Political Risk Management? - A Two Part Series 

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Tree Frog News, August 2024

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This two-part oped for Tree Frog News, a forestry sector news service, was written in the summer of 2024.

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Part I introduces political risk and summarises the state of the art within the Canadian forestry sector. It then explores the first two challenges covered, the China-West rivalry and confusion generated by volatile climate action policies. 

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Part II covers the next two issues, Canada-US trade friction and common challenges in emerging markets, where Canadian forestry companies hope to offset their dependence on the US market. The section on US trade relations noted the possibility of another Trump presidency and the potential for a general hardening of US trade policy irrespective of who won office in 2025. 

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Trump's Re-Emergence and Political Risk in the Canadian Forest Sector - A Two-Part Series 

 

Tree Frog News, February and March 2025 

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After Trump's second win and the clear spike in US protectionism, the Canadian lumber industry, which is heavily reliant on the US market, experienced its first serious dose of political risk. Harmattan did another two-part oped for Tree Frog to help Canadian forestry firms make sense of the uncertainties they were facing. 

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Part I introduces the scale of the challenge and the relevant characteristics of the Trump administration and its ideological orientation. It then applies a devil's advocacy approach to assess the first challenge covered - potential tariffs against Canadian lumber entering the US. At the time this was by far the most urgent and volatile issue. 

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Part II examines three more sources of angst for the Canadian lumber industry: changes in US customs duties, the potential effect of US economic nationalism on Canadian subsidiaries in the US, and the effect of US-China trade friction on Canadian sales in China. 

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In addition to trying to provide some guidance in a turbulent time, the paper also examines how assessment and planning needs to adapt to be able to make sense of highly fluid situations, and indeed Trump's policies at the time were exemplary in that respect. ​​​

 

 

Managing Geopolitical Uncertainty (and some challenges therein)  International Pulp Week, June 2025

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The second Tree Frog paper sparked interest beyond just lumber, and Harmattan was invited to present at International Pulp Week, a global pulp & paper industry event, in Vancouver BC in June 2025. The focus was on how to approach geopolitical uncertainty, using US trade policy and its implications for pulp companies as an illustrative case. 

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The extracted slide to the left, which links to the document, illustrated the real-time character of the exercise. From starting the presentation in April until the event in early June, every week seemed to obviate the previous summary, until it was clear that the presentation was less about facts in the here and now than an approach to stay ahead of a highly dynamic situation. 

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