An official with Chile’s Undersecretariat for International Economic Relations said that U.S. tariffs will impact 97.9% of wood and wood-product exports File Photo by Allison Dinner/EPA
A 10% surcharge will take effect Tuesday on all softwood and sawn timber entering the United States, causing concern in Chile’s forestry industry. The tariff will affect most of Chilean shipments.
An official with Chile’s Undersecretariat for International Economic Relations told UPI that the U.S. measure will impact 97.9% of wood and wood-product exports, valued at $1.063 billion in 2024. Small and medium-sized businesses in the sector are expected to be hit hardest.
Of all Chilean exports to the United States, 7% consist of wood and wood products. The U.S. market is the second-largest destination for these shipments, accounting for 18.4%, behind only China, which receives 40.5% of Chile’s exports.
“From the outset, it has been shown that Chilean shipments — which are highly significant for our country — represent a very small volume for the United States and do not affect its domestic supply,” said the Chilean Wood Corp., or CORMA, a trade association that represents more than 160 companies.
The group argued that the products Chile exports “complement those produced in the United States, do not create unfair competition and come from sustainably managed forests that meet the highest environmental standards.”
Rodrigo O’Ryan, president of CORMA, told UPI that the tariff puts Chilean exports to the United States at risk, although its impact and consequences are still being analyzed.
“We’re talking about roughly $130 million that, because of the surcharge, would have to be absorbed by the American buyer, the Chilean exporter or split about half and half, or something like that,” O’Ryan said.
“The problem is that Chile’s forestry sector — especially small and medium-sized companies — is already operating at its limit and has no room for additional taxes, not to mention the uncertainty these changes create,” he said.
He added that, as a result of recent wildfires, the availability of timber has fallen by 25%, while labor and energy costs have increased, leading producers to begin diversifying their export markets.
Still, he cautioned that it is too early to draw conclusions.
“We have to see what the consequences are and wait for the measure to take effect. We’ll have to go out and look for those new markets, but that doesn’t happen overnight. There will be a global adjustment of many products from countries that are severely affected, and they will probably compete with Chile in other markets,” O’Ryan said.
Chilean authorities said they remain in talks with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Department of Commerce “to secure the best possible conditions for Chilean products, in line with the joint roadmap agreed upon last April by the trade authorities of both countries.”
Antonio Espinoza, a researcher at the Observatory of the Economic Context at Diego Portales University, said the final impact of the surcharge will depend on how sensitive U.S. wood imports are to price changes.
“It’s expected that demand will not vary significantly, since partially substituting imported timber with domestic production would require high levels of capital investment and adjustments to existing capacity,” he said.
Espinoza recently published a study titled “Analysis of Chilean Exports to the United States Subject to Reciprocal Tariffs.” The report found that, overall, Chilean products subject to tariffs fell 10.7% after the measures took effect, while tariff-exempt goods increased 42.2%.
The products that had the greatest negative impact on the annual variation between April and August 2025 were fresh grapes, Espinoza said, with a negative effect of 7.2 percentage points.
“I don’t expect tariffs to have a major effect on Chile’s export structure, which is already well established and would require more radical changes to produce an impact of that magnitude, although there could be changes in the share the United States holds as a destination for certain products,” he said.
