Lake States Business Trends 2025 – Overseas Export Drops and Domestic Is On The Rise For The Lake States
The Lake States region is in agreement when it comes to the market having little change over six months and its generally positive. Transportation does not seem to be an issue and while the overseas export market is seeing delays, domestic sales are on the rise.
A sawmill salesman out of Michigan said, “The market is fair. Compared to six months ago it seems like it was about the same with a pretty good start for the year.”
The company offers several species and grades of hardwood like Hard and Soft Maple, Red and White Oak, Hickory, Walnut, Cherry, Basswood, and some Poplar, in thicknesses between 4/4 to 8/4 with some 3/4 and 5/4. Overall, the ones selling best for him are White Oak, Hard Maple and Walnut.
His main customers are roughly half distributors and half end users like flooring and cabinetry. “It shows reflection and demand. For example, No. 1 Common and Better demand is more than the lower grades, so that tells me the millwork and cabinet guys are busier than the flooring guys.”
Regarding effects on transportation, “I’m guessing there is not a lot of product moving,” he said. “We had a stretch where it was tough to get some products into Canada because of the tariffs, but those have been delayed and a lot of the overseas countries took a delay. Hopefully we just keep busy.”
A lumberman in Illinois had similar sentiments on the market. “It’s been pretty steady. No one is really sure what to do or how much to do, but it’s been steady. Prices haven’t been terrible.” He said, “It is not better than six months ago, we are still worse off due to the tariffs. Although, there is more certainty in the market that things are going to work out.”
“I think we are past the worst of it,” he mentioned. While bigger companies still have large inventories of lumber, the more middle tier companies are still buying.
His company mostly markets Walnut, Red and White Oak, with Walnut being the best in sales. Their main customers are concentration yards with a focus on green lumber.
“There was kind of a surge and people were basically able to sell lumber again,” he said. The source stated at the time of this writing, “Everyone is kind of in limbo because I was told that June 5th was the cutoff date for the 90-day pause on tariffs.” He then added, “They are still buying even though the dates have passed that you can ship, at least to China, and it still gets there in that 90-day period.”
Transportation has not been an issue for them. “I have heard that containers are an issue depending on where they’re going, but I haven’t heard anyone say that it has shut them down.” He counted himself fortunate that it has not gotten bad for them.
A Wisconsin lumber spokesperson commented on the market doing “pretty good” and “about the same as six months ago.” He works with species of Ash, Aspen, Basswood, Red and White Oak, Hard and Soft Maple, Cherry, and Hickory all in thickness 4/4 or 5/4. Among those species his best sellers are Red and White Oak and Hard and Soft Maple.
They cover several customer bases, such as distributors, wholesalers, and several end users. “They aren’t saying much on the market, but I feel they are doing decent because we continue to get orders,” he mentioned.
“We are having no problems with transportation at all. We aren’t exporting much right now, with very little or zero to China,” he said. “As far as the tariffs, I’m just not sure what everyone is doing but they are working around it.”
One Ohio lumber company says the market is doing okay. “We’ve had a pretty good summer so far. I would say right now we are doing pretty good. It was kind of slow at the first of the year, but it has picked up as it got into late spring and now summer.”
They sell Red and White Oak, Poplar, and some Walnut and Cherry all in 6/4 thickness with Red and White Oak being the most popular. “Our largest customers are telling us they’re busy, business is good,” he said. “The reason we are doing better is because they are doing better.
“I think with the tariffs people have just gotten used to it and they are going along with the day-by-day changes,” he said. “We have sold logs in the past to China, but we haven’t sold any in some time. So that part of the business is down but our domestic business is up. It offsets the fact that we aren’t sending as many logs overseas as we used to.”
