Yesterday evening, President Donald Trump shared plans for new tariffs targeting household furnishings on social media platform Truth Social.
The post said, on October 1, the administration will impose a 50 percent tariff on imported kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, and 30 percent tariffs on imported upholstered furniture.
“The reason for this is the large scale ‘FLOODING’ of these products into the United States by other outside Countries,” Trump said on Truth Social. “It is a very unfair practice, but we must protect, for National Security and other reasons, our Manufacturing process. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
In separate posts, Trump wrote that tariffs will likewise be placed on foreign-made pharmaceuticals and semi-trucks, 100 percent and 25 percent respectively. Exceptions will be made for international pharmaceutical companies building plants in the U.S.
Section 232, a national security law, was invoked by the White House to issue the tariffs. This law has been levied to pass other tariffs on steel, aluminum, cars, and copper.
The reaction so far has been mixed among U.S. manufacturers.
The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) estimates 7 percent of all building materials used for residential construction come from outside the U.S. NAHB cites a 30 percent spike in residential construction costs since 2021 and has urged the White House to exempt building materials from tariffs against Canada and Mexico.
In May, NAHB published data that found the number of new single family homes under construction in the U.S. plummeted by 12 percent, compared to April 2024, largely thanks to tariffs on lumber and timber, and other structural materials.
Alternatively, the American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance (AKCA), another trade group, supports the tariffs. In a press statement, AKCA said its members urged Trump to “sign a Presidential Proclamation imposing a robust Section 232 tariff rate on lumber and derivative products, including cabinetry.”
AKCA continued: “According to [15 industry CEOs], 250,000 good-paying American manufacturing jobs are on the line due to the flood of unfairly traded foreign cabinets and component parts from Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, China, Mexico, Indonesia and Thailand overwhelming the U.S. market.”
In a letter to company shareholders, RH (formerly Restoration Hardware) CEO Gary Friedman warned of increasing inflation in the year ahead. In his letter, Friedman pointed out that the manufacturing of high-quality wood or metal furniture “does not exist at scale in America. It would require years of investments in building the facilities and workforce that most in this industry cannot afford to make.”
On top of the tariffs, construction costs are also on the rise due to The White House’s deportation policies, which drive up construction costs because they create labor shortages. In response to these policies, landscape architects at TERREMOTO created a resource guides for undocumented laborers to protect themselves.
North of the border, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has taken the tariff situation into his own hands with a new authority charged with building affordable housing using 100 percent Canadian made goods, namely lumber, steel, aluminum, and mass timber.
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