Yes. Well, certainly softwood lumber has been a difficult issue between us and the U.S. for many, many years, as you're well aware.
With respect to the existing NAFTA and the new NAFTA, the agreement stipulates that there is free trade between Canada and the U.S. on softwood lumber products. The U.S. has a right to pursue anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations against imports from Canada, and they've done that frequently. That's within their rights. We have the right under chapter 19 to challenge the way they've done those investigations, and we have fairly consistently won those disputes. The U.S. has tended to bend, if not entirely break, the rules fairly significantly from time to time in their calculations and in the way they proceed with those investigations. That is why we have won.
The preservation of chapter 19 exactly as it is from NAFTA into the new agreement is fundamental for us to be able to pursue those issues. We would like to negotiate an agreement whereby we don't have to go through this process all the time, but at this point, the U.S. has shown little interest in pursuing an agreement.
You may be aware that the most recent administrative review on softwood lumber duties has demonstrated that the U.S. Department of Commerce has found much lower rates than are currently in place. We're hoping that after these preliminary rates have been published and we get to the final rates, they will indeed be lower and we'll be in a better position to try to get rid of these tariffs.
It's not a question of softwood lumber being outside of the agreement; it's very much a part of the agreement. It's just that the U.S. has been very exuberant in applying anti-dumping and countervailing duties against Canadian exports.