As the imposition of a threatened 25% blanket tariff on Canadian goods including softwood lumber products looms for the end of January, many practices are concerned about how cost increases might impact procurements and the cost of building as the country’s production currently equals an almost 30% market share.
This uncertainty is exacerbated by the fact that many U.S. lumber mills have been affected by high interest rates and labor shortages in recent years, driving down annual production capacity to a point where they alone are incapable of meeting demands, says North Carolina State University economist Rajan Parajuli in a recent interview.
This would of course affect the nationwide cost of construction using such products. The most recent Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index data showed an 11.8% uptick in the cost of softwood lumber when compared with the same 12-month period from the year before.
10 Comments
developers may pull in their horns and continue to put projects on hold
who wants to work with developers anyways.
I'm fine with keeping my trees north of the border. They probably prefer it here anyways.
I thought architects were supposed to be for local construction sourcing? Tariffs will only strengthen regional material logistics and change incentives away from foreign WalMart junk.
It may. It's also important to understand that the US operates in a global market. It's also important to understand the holistic aspect of many businesses.
Very few things, even the locally sourced ones come completely from the US.
Take softwood dimensional lumber. There are several US producers who harvest only from the US. The issue is that other aspects of their operation use resources from outside the US. This includes equipment (chainsaws, trucks, ect), materials (fuel, seedling for replanting, erosion control, ect). Simply put - it's not possible to only use US sourced and created products throughout a business.
These tariffs will still impact the costs of US produced products and goods.
That is why a blanket tariff is beyond stupid. Hard to imagine the cross the board application is going to go ahead, but let's see. Maybe stupidity will win this time. Either way America cost of living is set to climb the heights for those who can't afford it .
Trump's weird troll comments about annexing Canada doesn't help. It is a good way to get a lot of Canadians ready to support a lot of economically painful retaliation.
For the sake of this argument lets consider local materials as an isolated issue for sustainability in particular. We need some standard as a reference, so lets use the LEED regional materials credit as a baseline.
Production within 500 miles? By that metric probably 2/3rds of the country is within 500 miles of other countries that Trump has proposed tariff’s on, additionally the credit has serious weighting options for more efficient modes of transport. Both would suggest some potential issues fo r shipping materials across the country compared to just across boarders or by sea.
I’m not sure tariffs have a clear positive effect on this issue. That’s not their intent so that’s not surprising either. Might it improve options for the future? Sure.
I think that stopping development and continuing to shelve projects will become more common
This is interesting to watch. I believe this is much more complicated than the cut and dry / doomsday headlines are make thing sound. The economy needs to be addressed. Maybe redefining how we trade with other countries will have positive effects. I hope so.
Interesting like a heart attack.
Yes, trade is extremely complicated. So a negative reaction shouldn’t be surprising when someone addresses a critical market with a crude approach that almost exclusively promises to raise prices.
There is a place for Tariffs when we are trying to build specific markets… like maybe computer chips. I’m sure the incoming administration will support the growth of local markets for things like chips in conjunction with their proposed tariffs ….right?
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