Trump recently announced on social media that he is implementing an additional 10% tariff on softwood lumber on top of the 25% tariff from earlier this year. He also announced 25% tariffs on some upholstered furniture and on kitchen cabinets & vanities, which would increase to 30% and 50% respectively, in January.
Trump’s social media post claimed that the reason for these surprise tariff increases was the North Carolina furniture industry. He said that they would somehow revive the shrinking industry, but didn’t offer an explanation of how raising the price of materials and imported pieces would accomplish this.
The South, in particular North Carolina, was the world’s furniture capital for much of the 20th century. Over the past few decades, the center of furniture manufacturing has shifted overseas to China and other countries as the US economy became more service-focused and customer demand for lower-priced imported goods grew.
It no longer made sense for companies to manufacture furniture domestically, so manufacturing jobs in North Carolina dried up quickly. That hurt a lot of communities, many of which haven’t been the same since.
“It’s understandable why people might want to return to the past,” said the Charlotte Observer’s Opinion Writer, Paige Masten. “But the industry has changed with the times, and it’s better to figure out how to adapt than to try to return to something that will never be the same again. The jobs that left North Carolina two decades ago aren’t necessarily the same jobs that would come back, even if companies do start to reshore their manufacturing. The industry has changed, the processes have modernized, and things are more automated than they once were.”
Furniture for America, a trade group led by the Home Furnishings Alliance in High Point, responded to the announcement in a detailed letter to the Trump administration. The letter explains the concerns of industry leaders that these tariffs would not only fail to strengthen the US furniture industry but actually damage it further.
The 25% tariffs from earlier this year have already driven up lumber prices steeply, leading to price increases and potential downsizing. Industry leaders worry that the new additional tariffs will only make the problem worse, particularly for small factories that can’t shoulder the higher prices and may have to close.
Furniture for America pointed to the shifts in global supply chains over the last 25 years, as well as how the advancement of technology and automation has reduced the number of workers needed. At the same time, they said the shift of workers away from manufacturing jobs has left a shortage of skilled workers as the number one issue for domestic manufacturers. The high unemployment that immediately followed the closing of many North Carolina furniture factories 10-15 years ago did not last.
The Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton area, which saw 15% unemployment back then, was down to only 3.4% unemployment last year.
“Tariffs cannot unravel and reverse the global trends that shaped the home furnishings industry over those two and a half decades. Tariffs cannot reopen factories that no longer exist, bring back thousands of workers who retired or moved on to other industries, nor reverse the interests and inclinations of today’s younger workers, who are attracted to higher-paying trades and the burgeoning tech industry.”
Ultimately, this depends on whether tariffs are legal to begin with, since they appear to be an attempt by President Trump to seize authority that isn’t rightfully his
Congress is given the express and sole authority to impose duties such as tariffs in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Congress granted an exception in the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, in which Section 232 gives the President limited authority in exceptionally rare cases of national security risks.
This means cases when the level of imports for a specific product or resource would potentially hinder the Department of Defense from fulfilling its duties. Trump’s executive order uses Sec. 232 by claiming that lumber and furniture imports pose a national security threat, but only provides a heavily misleading statistic as evidence. In their letter, Furniture for America provides a thorough legal explanation of how the new tariffs fail to meet the requirements of Sec. 232 and thus violate the Constitution.
As Paige’s recent column states, “Using tariffs as a tool for economic revitalization is a short-sighted, knee-jerk strategy. You can’t tariff life back into an industry — but you can make investments that will help you keep up with change. North Carolina’s furniture industry isn’t the same as it used to be, but it still exists — hundreds of manufacturers support tens of thousands of jobs and generate billions of dollars in revenue.
Trump may think tariffs will revive the industry, but it’s more likely that they’ll threaten what’s left of it.”
