The UK furniture market is set to become more attractive to overseas manufacturers, and UK producers face greater export challenges.
President Trump has ordered tariffs of 25% on upholstery, along with kitchen and bathroom cabinets, from 14 October.
These will then rise to 30% on upholstery and 50% on the cabinets from 1 January.
A 10% tariff has also been imposed on timber imports.
Trump first confirmed the rates on social media.
Trump has said that US furniture manufacturers have struggled in the face of imports, highlighting North Carolina, traditionally the centre of US furniture manufacturing, on social media.
‘The reason for this is the large scale FLOODING of these products into the United States by other outside Countries. It is a very unfair practice, but we must protect, for National Security and other reasons, our Manufacturing,’ he wrote.
Timber is a critical ingredient in the US housebuilding industry, and the country sources about 30% of the softwood lumber it uses from Canada. Imports from Canada are already subject to countervailing and anti-dumping duties of 14.5%. The US does not have the industrial capacity to meet demand, according to the US housebuilding industry despite the country having an estimated 300nillion trees, and that placing a significant tariff on Canadian imports could strengthen the ongoing housing affordability crisis.
‘In my judgment, the actions in this proclamation will, among other things, strengthen supply chains, bolster industrial resilience, create high-quality jobs, and increase domestic capacity utilization for wood products such that the United States can fully satisfy domestic consumption while also creating economic benefits through increased exports,’ Trump wrote in the official announcement.
