Trump’s 25 percent tariffs could ‘exacerbate the nation’s housing affordability crisis, drive up consumer costs, and slow down the construction of new homes’. President Donald Trump’s new 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico threaten to make the U.S. housing shortage even worse and cause housing prices to soar, Democrats and industry experts warned Wednesday.
![[Representative Jim Costa of California wrote to the president on behalf of 44 House Democrats urging him to reconsider the tariffs]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/02/12/22/07/The-Congressional-Hispanic-Caucus-Holds-Press-Conference-On-Immigration-And-Border-Priorities-q568l0.jpeg)
Costa noted that the U.S. imports billions worth of building materials every year. The association said that the tariffs are in effect a “tax on American builders, home buyers and consumers.”. Americans are the ones who will pay the price, the association noted. “Tariffs on building materials raise the cost of housing, and consumers end up paying for the tariffs in the form of higher home prices,” the NAHB warned on its website.
Beyond the tariffs on steel and aluminum, the overall tariffs on Canadian lumber would rise to nearly 40 percent because of a 14.5 percent duty already in place, the association noted. The NAHB is calling for the Trump administration to allow a tariff exemption for building materials. Costa’s letter ends by calling on Trump to “shield American families from escalating housing costs.”. A White House spokesperson told the Guardian that Trump’s tariffs would “usher in a new era of growth and prosperity.”.
“In his first administration, President Trump instituted an America First economic agenda of tariffs, tax cuts, deregulation, and an unleashing of American energy that resulted in historic job, wage, and investment growth with no inflation,” said spokesperson Kush Desai. “In his second administration, President Trump will again use tariffs to level the playing field and usher in a new era of growth and prosperity for American industry and workers.”.
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