Changing Trade Patterns of Forest Products in the United States

Abstract

In recent years, a trend has emerged in the trade of forest products in the United States. As witnessed in many other industries in the U.S. over the past several decades, forest products exports have steadily dropped off in many instances while imports have continued to increase. The changes taking place have brought about a wave of uncertainty concerning the future of the forest products and transportation industries. In this paper, I collected, analyzed, and compared import and export data on five different forest products categories for the years 1996 and 2006 in order to depict the recent changes taking place. Although values and changes vary across the different product categories, the trend of increasing imports and the rising trade deficit in forest products is especially evident. Furthermore, changes in trade partners as well as new and emerging trade patterns stand out.