alt Hacker NewsHuh 30% of our lumber just got 50% more expensive. Good thing we don't have shortages of affordable housing that need new construction to solve. Brilliant stuff Donald. Truly some 4D chess moves.
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Price is set at the margin. If America is physically incapable of supplying 100% of its own lumber needs, then that Canadian lumber is the marginal good, and the price of 100% of lumber will go up, not just the Canadian stuff.
Two things that will prevent that:
- inertia
- it's likely that Canadian lumber before the tariffs wasn't the marginal good, wasn't the highest cost supplier. If Canadian suppliers were making 10% more profit than the previously marginal supplier, the price will go up 40% instead of 50%, Canadian suppliers absorbing that 10%.
I know you're being facetious, but his entire immigration policy is to deport a large part of the construction labor pool, so he was never had a chance to make housing more affordable.
As a Canadian, I hope this crisatunity translates into rock-bottom prices for lumber at home.
Please be aware people reading don't know which country you are from, so using "our" is ambiguous. You could just as well have been Canadian, and it took extra deciphering to guess you're apparently from the US.
Trump is and always has been a one-trick-pony: Shock and awe with a ridiculously over-the-top threat to shake his opponent and anchor the discussion high, then "accept" a deal that's better than any that could have been achieved with a calm opponent (pure bullying).
His second weapon is throwing a monkey wrench into the works after agreeing to something. Keep the opponent on their back heel.
It works well, until it doesn't. Once you meet an opponent who stands firm no matter what you threaten, you lose your bargaining position. Carney is well-versed in this kind of negotiation.
Lumber is not part of these tariffs. These are on a narrow set of products.
Lumber is a different long standing trade dispute going back to the 80s unrelated to the industries targeted by the 50% tariffs.
Trump created a 10% Lumber tariff in Sept 2025, but it was already tariffed before that. Canadian lumber today isn’t suddenly 50% more expensive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_s...
You gotta think long term. This is going to cause all those lumber companies to plant more forests and 40 years from now when they’re big enough boom, 3 new jobs servicing the autonomous tree harvesters.
It was already at 45% due to previous art of the deal moves.
That orange shit stain has explicitly said he want to drive housing prices up not down
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Idk man I just took a trip to Forks, WA and the amount of lumber they had and were processing up there was insane
You still think any of his moves are driven by 'what's good for the US'?
I think it's motivated entirely by schemes to stuff his pockets with money.