Will Trump’s push to increase timber production help rural communities?

Many rural communities in the Pacific Northwest grew up around a once-thriving timber industry. Almost all timber harvesting operations are located in rural areas. Logging has, and continues to be, a source of pride in these communities. The timber industry allowed rural communities to thrive economically. However, the timber industry has slowly shrunk over the years. President Trump wants to revive the timber industry by opening more national forests to logging.

On March 1, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order directing the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to expand American timber production. The Executive Order calls for the reversal of restrictive policies and the implementation of federal policies that promote timber harvesting throughout the United States.

This executive order is meant to assist rural communities that depend on the timber industry and help gain support for the Trump Administration. Will the change in policy work, and will it help the economies of rural communities? The answer is likely no.

The timber industry has been slowly shrinking across the United States, particularly in Western states. Many sawmills near national forests have closed in recent years. With the closure of mills, jobs in the rural communities that surround local mills have disappeared. For many rural communities, the local mill was the largest employer in the area.

One example of this is the closure of the Malheur Lumber Company in John Day, Oregon. John Day has a population of 1,543 people, and the Malheur Lumber Company employed 76 people. Following the closing of the Malheur Lumber Company, two other mills in Oregon closed in 2024. This means that in Oregon alone, seven individual mills have closed in 2024.

The closure of so many mills demonstrates that the timber industry in rural areas has vanished. This means that increasing timber harvesting in national forests will be of little help to rural communities. There is nowhere to go with the logs that are harvested. This is because “logs would have to be transported longer distances, at increased costs.” Struggling mills cannot afford to pay extra transportation costs.

It is also unlikely that any of these closed mills will reopen their doors. Susan Jane Brown, an environmental lawyer and principal at Silvix Resources in Oregon, said that “‘no businessman is going to invest millions of dollars in a new mill or in retrofitting an old mill.’”

Further complicating the implementation of President Trump’s Executive Order is the recent Forest Service budget cuts and employee layoffs. I have previously discussed how the layoffs of Forest Service employees disproportionately affect rural communities, but these layoffs also hamper the Trump Administration’s goal of increasing timber production.

The Federal Government has laid off approximately 3,400 Forest Service workers. Forest Service staff are responsible for organizing and implementing timber sales. Without adequate staffing, the Forest Service will struggle to market timber sales to private companies.

The Trump Administration's ongoing tariff war will negatively affect the wood products industry as well. If the United States’ economy falls into a recession, the timber industry and rural communities will be hit extraordinarily hard. If a recession were to occur, the housing market would suffer. Since the wood products industry is intertwined with the housing market, the effects on rural communities that depend on local mills would be devastating.

President Trump’s Executive Order is unlikely to assist rural communities that depend on the timber industry. Local mills and rural mill communities have already disappeared. The industry that needed to produce wood products no longer exists. Harvesting more trees will be of little use, as there is nowhere to go with the logs.

The Executive Order appears to be an attempt by the Trump Administration to appease rural communities who overwhelmingly voted for President Trump in 2024. However, this push to open more national forests will do very little to help rural communities that depend on the remnants of the timber industry. 

For further reading on the hardships that logging-dependent communities face, please see Jennifer Sherman’s book, Those Who Work, Those Who Don't: Poverty, Morality, and Family in Rural America, and Michelle Wilde Anderson’s book, The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America.