text: With respect to the softwood lumber dispute,it seems to have been forgotten that our best chance supposedly was more then a year ago when Obama and Trudeau were best friends. It wasn't settled then, and so it was highly unlikely that the charm offensive with Trump was going to do any better. The fact that we win these disputes is little consolation, as the resolution to this will drag on fro years at a a cost of perhaps hundreds of jobs and damage to our economy.Those that argue for retaliation against the U.S with some other resource, oil is often mentioned, ignore the fact that we would hurt much more then the U.S. and pain that would be felt by all consumers. The States is just too large and we are just too small to inflict real damage in a trade war, except if our intention is to inflict it on ourselves. The best move now is to wait and see what happens, and events and positions in the U.S. are subject to change without notice.