Hacker News Reader

Comment by softwaredoug | Hacker News Reader

Lumber is not part of these tariffs. These are on a narrow set of products.

Lumber is a different long standing trade dispute going back to the 80s unrelated to the industries targeted by the 50% tariffs.

Trump created a 10% Lumber tariff in Sept 2025, but it was already tariffed before that. Canadian lumber today isn’t suddenly 50% more expensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_s...

View on HN

This does not seem to be accurate, from the reporting I've read. Do you have a source?

This article lists the specific industries. Lumber is not one of them. It lists

Motor Vehicles, Alcohol, and Dairy as the largest industries.

https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-of-us-trade-tariffs-hitti...

The new duties are in addition to existing tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum and lumber.

According to your own article lumber is included already You’re wrong. It was already 45%!

Yes the average is currently 45%. But that’s been like that since Sept 2025, when Trump increased it 10% with section 232 tariffs. Here’s the executive order

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/full_text/html/202...

The new 50% tariffs don’t suddenly make Canadian lumber more expensive. It was already expensive.

This was all being negotiated together between Canada and US, but it’s not part of the new tariffs.

That quote supports the claim being made by the person who you are calling wrong.

True but it won’t stop price gouging or as the company uses have been calling it price blending.

I read the article, I don't take away from it that Canadian lumber is suddenly 50% more expensive. It explains that tariffs for some Canadian lumber products was set to 50 percent at some point (or maybe lowered again, and raised, it's hard to tell since the Trump administration has issued 50+ different tariff directives in the last year), and that Canada walked away from negotiations recently.

I tried to do some more research before my coffee finishes in 5 minutes, you're right it's not ALL Canadian products or even all Canadian lumber products.

> Canadian negotiators also hoped to achieve some relief on softwood lumber tariffs that go back decades and were augmented with additional tariffs from Mr. Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/world/canada/trump-tariff...

These are preexisting trade issues that were being negotiated. The new 50% tariffs are on other industries. Lumber trade issues predate this administration, and aren’t involved in the new 50% that’s put on $20B on other industries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_s...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com