The Vancouver Sun reports in its Wednesday edition that the latest round of American protectionist trade sanctions against steel and aluminum have provided an ally for British Columbia's forestry sector. The Sun's Derrick Penner writes that while the U.S. tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, extended to Canada, the European Union and Mexico on May 31, are relatively new, B.C.'s forestry sector has been in the grip of a more activist U.S. trade policy in a decades-long dispute with the American industry. With Rio Tinto's 420,000-tonne-a-year aluminum smelter added as a target for tariffs, "We're getting some friends with us in this fight," said Susan Yurkovich, president of the B.C. Lumber Trade Council. "It's not a great thing from our perspective. We wish more sensible heads were prevailing on the U.S. side so we could get back to modernizing the NAFTA agreement." In B.C., it was first lumber in 2017 that faced complaints from the U.S. side of unfair trade. This year, Canadian newsprint has also been subject to an unfair trade complaint, with corresponding duties, and now aluminum faces tariffs, increasing the unease for 1,000 smelter workers in B.C.'s northwest. B.C. has not yet received any requests for help.