U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he was slapping 10 per cent tariffs on imported timber and lumber and 25 per cent duties on kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and upholstered furniture, continuing his tariff assault on global trading partners.
The action is the first in three sectors that Trump said last week would get steep new duties as early as Oct. 1, including patented pharmaceutical and heavy truck imports. Monday’s proclamation sets the start of the lumber and furniture duties two weeks later, on Oct. 14 at 12:01 a.m. ET.
Trump signed a presidential proclamation laying out his argument that timber, lumber and furniture imports are eroding U.S. national security to justify the new duties under Section 232 of the Trade Act of 1974.
His increasing use of Section 232 comes as he awaits a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the legality of his broader “reciprocal” tariffs on global trading partners, which two lower courts have struck down.
There are no carve-outs for goods that comply with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, according to a senior Canadian government source with direct knowledge of the situation.
The proclamation said the tariff rates would start on Oct. 14, but added that duties would increase on Jan. 1, 2026, to 30 per cent for upholstered wooden products and 50 per cent for kitchen cabinets and vanities imported from countries that failed to reach an agreement with the United States.
Trump’s proclamation said wood product imports were weakening the U.S. economy, resulting in the persistent threat of closures of wood mills and disruptions of wood product supply chains and diminishing utilization of the U.S. domestic wood industry.
Separating fact from fiction in the U.S.-Canada softwood lumber trade war
“Because of the state of the United States wood industry, the United States may be unable to meet demands for wood products that are crucial to the national defence and critical infrastructure,” the statement said.
The order added that wood products were used for “building infrastructure for operational testing, housing and storage for personnel and materiel, transporting munitions, as an ingredient in munitions, and as a component in missile-defence systems and thermal-protection systems for nuclear-reentry vehicles.”
Trump’s use of tariffs has been a feature of his second term, throwing new obstacles at businesses already struggling with disrupted supply chains, soaring costs and consumer uncertainty. His administration has highlighted the surge in duties paid into government coffers.
The action heaps more tariffs on Canada, the biggest softwood lumber supplier to the U.S., where producers already face combined U.S. anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs of about 35 per cent due to a long-festering dispute over timber harvested from Canadian public lands.
The federal government, which hopes to negotiate U.S. tariff reductions through a broader revamp of the 2020 Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade (CUSMA), has said it would provide up to $1.2 billion in aid to Canadian softwood lumber producers to cope with the prior duties.
For kitchen cabinet maker James McKenna, the 25 per cent duty is “extremely high and difficult.”
The Shediac, N.B.-based owner of Glenwood Kitchen said that the U.S. accounts for a fair amount of their business. While the company has orders in production for December, McKenna says he gives it about three months before that part of the business dries up.
“We may be able to manage with the exchange rate and the low cost of transportation getting it to our close U.S. customers, but anything above 25 per cent, to me, is not doable and will ultimately shut down the industry shipping to the United States,” he said.
Brian Menzies, the executive director of the Independent Wood Processors Association of B.C., told CBC News that the industry has “already been devastated,” noting that lumber producers are actively dealing with a cluster of U.S. tariffs.
The association’s members turn raw wood into siding, decking and other wood-based home products. Roughly 80 per cent of the products they manufacture go to the U.S., according to Menzies.
“We’re being basically impacted or being told that we’re causing a national security [concern] to the United States,” he added. “It’s getting more and more ludicrous.”
CBC News reached out to the White House for more information on the tariffs but has not received a response. Trump’s executive order doesn’t mention an exemption for the tariffs under CUSMA.
Mexico and Vietnam are growing suppliers of wooden furniture to the U.S. after Trump hit Chinese furniture products with tariffs of up to 25 per cent during his first term starting in 2018 — duties which have since been raised to about 55 per cent and now could nearly double for cabinets and vanities.
Trump’s proclamation offered some countries that have struck tariff-reducing trade deals with the U.S. some relief from the higher wood products duties.
It said that U.S. tariffs on wood products from Britain would be capped at 10 per cent and those from the European Union and Japan would be capped at 15 per cent — rates in line with the base tariff rate in those framework agreements.
But Trump’s statement made no mention of his trade deal with Vietnam for a 20 per cent tariff rate in July, an agreement that still has not been formally documented.
In April, after the Commerce Department opened the national security probe into U.S. lumber imports, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced its opposition to any restrictions on imports of timber, lumber and their derivative products, including wood pulp, paper and cardboard.
“Imports of these goods do not represent a national security risk,” the Chamber wrote. “Imposing tariffs on these goods would raise costs for U.S. businesses and home construction, undermine the export success enjoyed by the U.S. paper industry, and reduce incomes in many U.S. communities.”
