Donald Trump sets lumber, wood tariffs in bid to shore up US industry

President Donald Trump ordered 10% tariffs on imports of softwood timber and lumber, as well as 25% levies on kitchen cabinets, vanities and upholstered wood products, marking his latest bid to use import taxes to shore up domestic manufacturing.

The tariffs are set to apply from Oct. 14, with some increases targeted to take effect from Jan. 1, according to a proclamation signed Monday. They follow a Commerce Department investigation into imports of lumber, timber and derivative products such as cabinets and furniture that was launched in March.

Trump said the planned actions will “strengthen supply chains, bolster industrial resilience, create high-quality jobs and increase domestic capacity utilisation for wood products.”

The levies are being imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which empowers the president to charge tariffs on goods in the name of national security. They are distinct from the so-called reciprocal, or country-specific, tariffs Trump has imposed to raise revenue, address trade imbalances and encourage other nations to lift barriers to American goods.

They also could be more legally durable, a key factor as the Supreme Court considers a challenge to the reciprocal tariffs — and as administration officials work to build a robust alternative regime in case those are struck down.

Major economies that have cut separate trade deals with Trump will have lower rates, according to Trump’s directive. For instance, tariffs on wood products from the UK won’t exceed 10%, and for the European Union and Japan, they’ll effectively be capped at 15%.

Some congressional Republicans had urged Trump to use tariffs on furniture, cabinets and other wood products to boost their home-state industries, with some encouraging levies as high as 100%. And Trump has signalled his sympathy for furniture makers in North Carolina — once part of an acclaimed southern US hub for the domestic industry — where manufacturers say they are increasingly competing against subsidised, foreign rivals.

“The furniture industry has been wiped out by unfair foreign trade practices,” Edwin Underwood, president of Marsh Furniture, said in a news release. “We must not allow history to repeat itself with domestic cabinet manufacturing.”

Cost Concerns
The new levies could boost the competitiveness of domestic furniture makers — but home builders and retailers have warned that this would come at a cost to their businesses.

Furniture retailers that could be affected by the decision include Wayfair Inc., Arhaus Inc., Williams-Sonoma Inc. and RH, which operates the chain formerly known as Restoration Hardware. US-based manufacturers that could benefit from the decision include Ethan Allen and La-Z-Boy Inc.

The home furnishings sector has already been in a recession for years, and tariffs targeting timber and wood “would put it on its knees,” Dovetail Furniture and Designs, a furniture retailer based in California, warned the Commerce Department earlier this year.

Furniture for America, a coalition of companies spearheaded by the American Home Furnishings Alliance, said new duties on wood products would shrink the US workforce, since American furniture companies are reliant on a complex global supply chain that’s evolved over a quarter century — and not easily replaced domestically.

“Tariffs cannot unravel and reverse the global trends that shaped the home furnishings industry over those two and a half decades,” the group said in comments filed with the Commerce Department. “Tariffs cannot reopen factories that no longer exist, bring back thousands of workers who retired or moved on to other industries, nor reverse the interests and inclinations of today’s younger workers, who are attracted to higher-paying trades and the burgeoning tech industry.”

Home builders had also warned against the tariffs, saying levies on lumber threatened to raise the cost of new construction and deter purchases.

According to the White House, the US has been a net importer of lumber since 2016, as foreign imports increasingly help meet domestic demand. The White House alleged in March that many of those imports benefit from government subsidies and predatory trade practices, unfairly harming the competitiveness of domestic companies.

Trump’s tariffs are part of an expanding pool of sectoral tariffs covering an increasing number of consumer goods — from mobile phones to the industrial machinery used to make them. The US has already slapped tariffs on imported steel and aluminium, and a slew of other Section 232 investigations are still being conducted into foreign-made solar panels, commercial aircraft, semiconductors and critical minerals

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