The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday, June 30, edition that as things stand now, Canada and the United States are not entering a new softwood-lumber agreement any time soon. The Globe's guest columnist Carl Grenier writes that last March, the President and the Prime Minister agreed to try, but the U.S. will negotiate only what its industry wants, and its industry wants nothing but a hard-cap quota controlling the supply of Canadian lumber available in the U.S. market. Canada, for its part, will negotiate only what British Columbia wants, and B.C. does not want a strict quota. Canada characterizes everything that does not encompass "optionality" -- the flexibility to restrain trade by export tax or quota -- as "other important issues," such as recognition of stumpage reform consistent with historic U.S. demands. The U.S. characterizes everything that is not a quota as "off the table." The U.S. threatens to beat up Canada through a petition, investigation and imposition of duties, if Canada will not succumb to the U.S. idea of a "compromise." Canada promises each time the two sides meet to give away more than before just to avoid a beating.