New Tariffs Target Heavy Trucks, Kitchen Cabinets & Lumber from Oct. 1

On October 1, the United States will begin imposing a new 25% tariff on imported heavy-duty trucks. Two weeks later, on October 14, a second wave kicks in: a 10% tariff on softwood timber and lumber and a 25% tariff on kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and certain upholstered wood furniture—rates that the White House says could climb as high as 50% for cabinets on January 1 if trading partners don’t “cooperate.” Together, the measures mark a rapid expansion of U.S. tariff policy into construction-critical inputs and home-interior goods, with ripple effects that are likely to be felt from house framing yards to kitchen showrooms.

Below is a deep dive into what exactly changes (and when), who trades what with whom, how much costs might rise, and how those costs could wash through construction, housing and remodeling—plus the political logic, legal backdrop, and historical parallels that explain why this is happening now.

What Changes—And When

Heavy trucks (Oct. 1): A 25% import tariff on heavy-duty trucks (Class 7–8), announced September 26, takes effect Wednesday, October 1. The announcement jolted truckmakers’ shares and immediately raised questions about how the duty would interact with existing North American trade rules.

Wood products & furniture (Oct. 14): A presidential proclamation imposes a 10% tariff on softwood timber and lumber and a 25% tariff on kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and upholstered wood furniture, effective October 14. The proclamation cites Section 232 “national security” authority and warns of rate increases beginning January 1, including cabinet tariffs rising up to 50% for some countries if negotiations fail.

Two timing notes matter for business planning:

• Oct. 1 vs. Oct. 14: Trucks are first (Oct. 1); wood, cabinets and furniture follow (Oct. 14). Some early reporting framed all measures as Oct. 1; the formal proclamation sets Oct. 14 for wood and furniture. Procurement teams should plan accordingly.

• Escalator risk: Tariffs on cabinets may increase in January, subject to the administration’s judgments about “cooperation.” That “step-up” raises pricing uncertainty for longer-lead remodel projects.

Who Trades What With Whom

Understanding the exposure begins with baselines: how much the U.S. imports in these categories and from where.

Heavy-Duty Trucks

By value, delivery/heavy trucks (HS 8704) were one of America’s largest import categories in 2024: $47.5 billion. Mexico is the dominant exporter globally for this category, and the U.S. is the world’s top buyer—reflecting deeply integrated North American supply chains.

Industry analysts immediately flagged a key uncertainty: Will North American plants—especially in Mexico—face the full 25%? Much U.S. heavy-truck capacity sits in the U.S., but North American producers rely on cross-border manufacturing. Early notes from the sell-side called out potential USMCA interactions and whether the new tariff stacks atop existing truck duties (e.g., the long-standing “chicken tax” on light trucks).

Softwood Timber & Lumber

The U.S. is structurally short of softwood lumber and imports a meaningful share of supply, overwhelmingly from Canada, which provides about 85% of U.S. softwood lumber imports and nearly a quarter of overall U.S. supply. In value terms, softwood lumber imports come to roughly $6.8 billion. A 10% tariff on that flow implies hundreds of millions of dollars in added landed cost if fully passed through.

Kitchen Cabinets & Vanities

For wooden kitchen furniture (HS 9403.40), the U.S. imported about $2.68 billion in 2024. Key suppliers include Vietnam, Malaysia, Canada and Mexico (with country shares varying by year and product). The administration’s 25% cabinet tariff (potentially 50% in 2026) overlays an import base that already contends with targeted U.S. trade remedies: the U.S. imposed AD/CVD duties on Chinese cabinets in 2020, and agencies have been active since with scope rulings and enforcement actions.

The Economic Motive: National Security Meets Industrial Strategy

The legal basis is Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, the same authority used in 2018 for steel and aluminum. The proclamation argues that reliance on foreign wood products jeopardizes national security by undermining critical domestic industries and supply chains. Critics counter that Section 232 has been stretched far beyond traditional “security” contexts. WTO panels found the 2018 metals tariffs inconsistent with WTO rules, though Washington rejected the rulings and has emphasized national security prerogatives.

Politically, the measures serve multiple administration goals: (1) leverage in trade talks (notably with Canada on lumber and with Asian cabinet suppliers), (2) signaling to industrial swing states that the White House is “on the side” of domestic producers, and (3) reinforcing a broader tariff framework revived and expanded in 2025 for metals and other sectors. Whether that ultimately helps or hurts downstream industries is contested—and turns on pass-through to prices.

How Much Might Prices Rise? (A Practical Pass-Through View)

Tariff math depends on two questions: What’s the coverage? and How much is passed through? Research on recent U.S. tariffs (2018–2021) finds substantial pass-through to U.S. prices and limited domestic production gains, implying that importers and consumers bear much of the cost. Federal Reserve and USITC analyses point in that direction as a base case.

Here’s a straightforward, upper-bound back-of-the-envelope (assuming full pass-through and comparable volumes):

• Heavy Trucks: 25% on $47.5B (HS 8704) → up to $11.9B in incremental annual costs if fully applied to all imports. However, if USMCA-origin vehicles or plants receive relief, the effective hit could be far smaller; this is the largest uncertainty for fleet buyers and carriers.

• Softwood Lumber: 10% on $6.8B imports → roughly $680M in gross tariff costs, chiefly borne by Canadian suppliers and U.S. buyers unless offset by price concessions or currency moves.

• Kitchen Cabinets & Vanities: 25% on $2.68B → about $670M; if cabinet tariffs step up to 50% in January on a large share of imports, it could approach $1.3B (upper bound).

Reality will differ: suppliers discount, buyers switch sources, and not all imports are covered equally. But these bookends frame the stakes for pricing conversations in Q4 and early 2026.

Where Tariff Pressures Hit The Real Economy

Housing & Homebuilding

Lumber is basic fuel for U.S. new-home construction. Canada supplies most U.S. lumber imports, and a new across-the-board 10% duty layers atop the long-running softwood lumber dispute and existing AD/CVD orders on specific Canadian producers. In past episodes, lumber price spikes translated quickly into higher framing costs. While today’s 10% levy is modest compared with the pandemic’s extreme lumber swings, the direction is inflationary for materials budgets, tightening margins at builders already squeezed by high mortgage rates.

The affordability channel is real: NAHB’s longstanding “priced-out” model estimates that every $1,000 increase in a home’s price disqualifies about 115,000 U.S. households from a mortgage—at current rates. Even small, broad-based cost uplifts matter at scale, particularly for entry-level buyers.

Remodeling & Kitchen/Bath

Remodeling is a $500-billion-plus market. Cabinets are often the most expensive line item in a kitchen remodel, and trade press expects tangible price pressure from 25% (and potentially 50%) cabinet tariffs. The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies estimates U.S. homeowner improvement and repair spending at about $503B in 2024, projected to $509B in 2025—a massive base where even a one-to-two-percent nudge is felt. The kitchen & bath segment alone is roughly $170–175B per year. In short: a big market with tariff-sensitive components.

What homeowners may see: Industry coverage and K&B market watchers caution that cabinet prices at retail could rise double-digits in the near term as importers reprice and shift sourcing, and project timelines may stretch as suppliers adjust. Big-box buyers who rely on import-heavy SKUs are most exposed; fully domestic lines will market themselves as “safer”—but may still move prices up as the market resets.

Construction Logistics & Trucking

On trucks, the pass-through will likely be uneven. Many Class 8 tractors are built in the U.S., but North American cross-border content is high, and fleet buyers often mix domestic and imported configurations. If the 25% hit lands broadly across origin points, capex for carriers could rise, with secondary effects on freight rates. If, instead, USMCA supply chains are carved out or given relief, the impact could be more muted—this is the key policy watch-item for fleets serving construction and building-products logistics. Early market reaction in Europe (where some OEM parents are listed) suggests meaningful uncertainty.

The Legal & Diplomatic Backdrop

Section 232 allows tariffs where imports “threaten to impair national security.” The provision has been used episodically in recent decades but was revived in 2018 for steel and aluminum, a move that prompted WTO disputes (with panels finding the measures inconsistent with WTO rules) and U.S. pushback emphasizing national security and the need to reform dispute settlement. The new Oct. 14 proclamation repeats the national-security rationale—this time for wood and furniture. Expect challenges and countermeasures to surface, even as the administration asserts broad executive discretion.

A note on existing remedies: The cabinet category already carries antidumping and countervailing duty orders on Chinese cabinets (since 2020), and Commerce has policed scope and evasion issues (including transshipment through Southeast Asia). The new cabinet tariff is broader in product and country coverage, potentially compounding existing duties.

Historical Parallels: From the Chicken Tax to Section 301

• Light-truck “chicken tax” (1964–present): A 25% tariff on imported pickups and certain vans has shaped the U.S. vehicle market for six decades, encouraging domestic production and creative “tariff engineering.” Today’s heavy-truck measure echoes that tradition of using high truck tariffs as a policy lever.

• 2018 metals tariffs (Section 232): 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum were justified on security grounds in 2018, later expanded and tweaked; economic studies found higher prices for downstream U.S. industries with mixed evidence of durable output gains.

• 2018–2019 China tariffs (Section 301): Broad tariffs (10–25%) on Chinese goods cut China’s share of U.S. imports in affected categories, but prices rose and sourcing shifted rather than significant reshoring. The USITC estimated a 13% reduction in imports from China across sectors and measurable price impacts.

The lesson: tariffs usually raise costs for U.S. buyers in the short run, while production responses—when they occur—take longer and depend on capital cycles, labor availability, and policy stability.

How Much Could Housing Actually Feel?

Scenario math for lumber: Let’s assume (for illustration) imports supply ~25% of U.S. softwood lumber consumption and Canada is ~85% of those imports. A 10% tariff on imports would, all else equal, push the average domestic market price up by a smaller amount—say ~2–3%—because the tariff applies only to the import slice and domestic mills may follow those prices up. For a typical single-family frame package that runs in the low- to mid-five figures, a few percent is hundreds to a couple thousand dollars. That may sound small in isolation, but home affordability today is razor-thin; NAHB’s priced-out model suggests even modest price steps exclude tens of thousands of potential buyers at the margin.

Scenario math for cabinets: Cabinets can be a quarter or more of an average kitchen budget, and industry reporting suggests double-digit retail price increases are plausible if importers pass through a 25% duty (or more in 2026). On a $27,000 kitchen (a commonly cited median), that could mean several thousand dollars more when projects rely on import-heavy lines—even before labor. Expect tiered impacts: mass-market SKUs move first; semi-custom and custom follow with more nuance.

Knock-on scheduling effects: Tariff uncertainty can delay project starts as suppliers re-source and repricing cascades through dealer networks. For builders syncing deliveries of doors, trim, cabinets alongside HVAC and appliances, the new duties add another procurement variable in an already tight calendar.

Winners, Losers, and the Competitive Chessboard

Potential winners:

• Domestic cabinet makers & wood products mills, which gain pricing power as imports reset higher. Their challenge is capacity, lead times, and labor availability. (The U.S. Lumber Coalition has long argued imports undercut domestic producers—expect vocal support.)

• Truck OEMs with U.S. assembly footprints could see a relative edge if the 25% truck tariff bites non-USMCA origin units, though supply chains are intertwined.

Likely losers:

• Import-reliant dealers and builders, facing higher landed costs and more volatile lead times—especially in entry-level housing and value-engineered multifamily where budgets are tight.

• Canadian lumber producers (already under AD/CVD), plus Vietnamese/Malaysian cabinet exporters, who will need to cut prices, shift production, or cede share. Ottawa has already flagged financial support for the sector amid a softer lumber market.

Consumers: Over time, broader tariff programs have shown meaningful pass-through to U.S. prices, with central-bank research warning that higher tariff coverage can lift consumer inflation—especially if pass-through remains high.

Three Plausible Paths From Here

1. North American carve-outs: The administration issues exemptions or implementation guidance that eases the truck tariff burden on USMCA-compliant production, muting the freight and fleet capex impact. Watch for Customs (CBP) and Commerce notices.

2. Negotiated stabilization on wood: The U.S. and Canada use the new tariff as leverage toward a framework on softwood lumber, tamping down AD/CVD volatility. Cabinet suppliers re-source into non-penalized countries, stabilizing prices after a Q4/Q1 spike.

3. Escalation & litigation: Cabinet tariffs step up to 50% on January 1 for major sources; industry groups and trading partners challenge Section 232 use at the WTO and in U.S. courts, prolonging uncertainty.

What Procurement & Finance Teams Should Watch

• Formal implementation guidance from USTR, Commerce, and CBP—especially any exclusions or country carve-outs that change effective rates.

• October and November dealer price lists for cabinets, vanities, and wood components; Q4 surcharge memos from distributors.

• Truck OEM pricing for 2026 model-year orders and any changes to build-of-materials that shift origin. Early 2026 quote cycles will reveal how much sticks.

• Remodel spending signals (Harvard LIRA updates; NKBA KBMI reports) for whether demand softens or households absorb higher prices.

• WTO proceedings and allied responses—particularly from Canada and Vietnam—informing the durability of these tariffs.

Bottom Line

Starting October 1, heavy-truck imports face a 25% tariff; October 14 brings 10% on softwood lumber and 25% on kitchen cabinets/vanities (with the threat of 50% for cabinets in January). The measures aim to boost domestic production and leverage trade talks under a national-security banner, but the short-run effect is likely higher costs and more volatile lead times for industries that build and outfit American homes.

For homebuilders and remodelers—after years of grappling with rates, labor, and supply chains—these tariffs add another variable to model. For procurement teams, October is a month to lock in quotes, clarify origin, and sequence deliveries before January’s potential escalator. And for policymakers, the months ahead will test whether tariff-driven leverage can secure durable trade arrangements—without compromising the affordability of the very homes and goods Americans are trying to buy.