Damn Americans won't accept our softwood!

Topic: Canada

For the past several years, I've listened to and read reports of Canada winning international court decision ofter court decision regarding duties on our softwood.

Amercian sources aren't following the dispute as closely as Canadian sources. MSNBC say only:

Washington and Ottawa have been embroiled in disputes over softwood lumber tariffs and a ban on Canadian beef.

Canadians are understandably upset.
This is only the most recent decision:

An extraordinary challenge panel under the North American Free Trade Agreement has essentially dismissed Washington's claims that Canada's softwood exports are subsidized and thus, have damaged the U.S. lumber industry.

That undermines the entire American case, said Canadian officials. They vowed Wednesday to fight hard for the quick return of $5 billion in penalties - plus interest - collected by Washington in countervail and anti-dumping duties.

I commented in my Hans Island post that I wanted to see the the rule of law, not of special interests or trickery to avoid those laws. I would be willing to give up my claim to Hans Island if an international court said so. I don't understand how the US can ignore the NAFTA decisions. I guess I'm pretty naive.

This is it for off-topic posts for a while. I'll try to stick to Korea more closely.