Hardwood didn’t just grow in Kentucky .... it built Kentucky.

For generations, Appalachian hardwood powered real towns, real paychecks, and real families. It furnished America’s homes, sustained rural counties, and tied our forests to our future. This wasn’t some quaint legacy industry .... it was an economic backbone carved out of mountains and grit.

Now that backbone is cracking. Decades of offshoring, the 2008 crash, and Trump’s reckless trade war with China didn’t “nudge” this industry .... they walloped it.

Production has fallen to 1960s levels while trees sit unharvested and mills close almost every week. Skilled workers are losing good jobs, trucking companies are losing contracts, and whole communities are bleeding out quietly while Washington shrugs.

Farmers rightly got relief when trade wars hurt them. Hardwood families got nothing. Zero. Zip. And we’re still paying for that betrayal.

Congress is finally talking about $200 million in relief for hardwood producers. It’s not charity .... it’s common sense. Without domestic sawmills, we don’t have resilient supply chains, we don’t have manufacturing revival, and we don’t have the pallets that literally move everything we buy.

Hardwood built Kentucky once. With smart policy, it can build it again. The question is whether our leaders have the courage to stand up for working people instead of pretending markets magically fix everything.

WE DESPERATELY NEED NEW LEADERSHIP

TRUMP's Trade War Decimates Kentucky Hardwood.