No carve-outs for CUSMA-compliant goods, according to senior government source. 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.
Duties increasing on Jan. 1
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. ”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.”
More pain for Canadian producers
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.
Source: .cbc.ca/news
