Expect the cost of building to get much more expensive after Donald Trump slapped tariffs on countries supplying vast amounts of lumber to the US economy. Dubbed “Liberation Day,” Trump told reporters that April 2nd would be “forever remembered as the day American industry was reborn,” insisting that domestic manufacturing would surge with companies flocking to America to make products.
Among those hardest hit by tariffs could include plywood—used in roofing, sheathing, subflooring, framing, structural support, furniture, and cabinetry—with Vietnam (now subject to a 46% tariff), Indonesia (a 32% tariff), Spain (20% tariff), China (a 34% blanket tariff on all imports) and Malaysia (24% tariff) together responsible for more than 40% of the 4.7 million cubic metres of plywood traded into the United States last year – including the US Army and Navy, who are both among the world’s largest consumers of Keruing tropical timber used in military floorboards.
The new tariffs, which will come into effect within hours, are part of sweeping tariffs – which will see a 10% tariff on all imports from Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and Mexico (both been sparred additional tariffs) as well as PNG (which supplies tropical hardwoods into the United States) – with even higher rates for dozens of trading partners including China, India and the European Union (now subject to sweeping 20% tariffs on all imported products).
“Reciprocal – that means they do it to us, we do it to them,” Trump told White House reporters from the Rose Garden. “Foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once-beautiful American Dream.”
“This is one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history. It’s our declaration of economic independence. Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country, and you see it happening already. We will supercharge our domestic industrial base.”
Donald Trump who annnounced the new tariffs from the Rose Garden earlier today.
Defending the tariffs, Trump said they are “kind” and much lower than tariffs and other trade barriers imposed by countries on United States imports. For example, Fiji, which exports large quantities of Mahogany into the American market, will now be subject to a 32% tariff despite hitting American products with 63% tariffs.
And on China—the world’s largest timber economy: “They charge us, we charge them, we charge them less. So, how can anybody be upset?” Trump told reporters, with Beijing and the European Union among a raft of countries threatening to hit Washington with countermeasures.
“They all understand we’ll have to go through a little tough love, maybe. But they all understand. They’re ripping us off, and they understood it,” Trump said, stressing that the United States will now channel its protectionist roots:
“From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation, and the United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been,” according to Trump, who has repeatedly elevated 1890s protectionist president William McKinley as one of his heroes who also slapped tariffs on imports.
“In 1913, for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying the money necessary to run our government. Then, in 1929, it all came to a very abrupt end with the Great Depression. And it would have never happened if they had stayed with the tariff policy.”
- To learn more about the impact of Donald Trump’s tariff plan on global timber prices, click here for Wood Central’s special feature.
