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Comment by tbrownaw | Hacker News Reader

> because there's one extremely obvious way to lower the price of building new housing: Reducing or eliminating tariffs on construction equipment and materials and ensuring a robust supply of low-cost labor.

Oh I thought the one extremely obvious way was to fix local policy roadblocks. After all, it's not like a lacking supply of housing is a new issue they suddenly appeared out of nowhere within the last dozen months.

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> After all, it's not like a lacking supply of housing is a new issue they suddenly appeared out of nowhere within the last dozen months.

The main lumber and building materials tariffs went into effect January 1st 2026.

If you thought the current situation was bad, it's only going to get worse.

This announcement is a distraction to get people blaming Wall Street. It's a "look over there!" announcement literally days after they raised tariffs to make a bad situation worse.

I think you're getting your facts wrong: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/01/business/trump-furniture-...

"President Donald Trump has delayed new tariff increases on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets, and vanities for a year, pushing their implementation to 2027, according to a White House statement."

You're right, I probably got some of the increases delayed.

But those are increases on top of the already high tariffs.

I agree with you, they'll probably worsen the effect, and I assume this is maybe 5% in the long run from all these tariffs (if they're not cancelled).

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