FPAC: 50% U.S. Tariffs Will Raise Housing Costs
Canada’s forest industry has a blunt warning for Washington: the newest tariffs will make American homes more expensive. FPAC, the Forest Products Association of Canada, responded to the proposed expansion of U.S. duties on a broad range of Canadian forest products by arguing the measures are self-defeating — taxing the very lumber and wood goods that American builders rely on. It is a rebuttal aimed squarely at the economic logic of the tariffs rather than just their fairness.
FPAC Pushes Back on 50% Forest Products Tariffs
The trigger is a set of proclamations imposing 50% tariffs on hundreds of categories of Canadian goods, with a wide swath of forest products swept in. For an industry that already ships into the United States under a thicket of trade barriers, the expansion lands hard. Canadian forest products have for years faced countervailing and antidumping duties on softwood lumber, plus Section 232 measures — and these new duties stack on top of that existing burden rather than replacing it.
FPAC’s formal statement framed the move as both unjustified and counterproductive. The association represents the country’s wood, pulp and paper producers, and it cast the tariffs as a blow that will ripple across the border in both directions. That argument — that Americans will feel the pain too — is the core of the industry’s messaging, and it reflects how deeply integrated the North American wood products economy has become. The tariffs are already reshaping the 2026 wood products market segment by segment.
The Housing-Cost Argument at the Center of the Response
The sharpest point in FPAC’s response ties the tariffs directly to U.S. housing affordability. Wood is a foundational homebuilding input, and the association argues that taxing it undercuts Washington’s own stated goal of building more homes. Just weeks earlier, Congress had passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, aimed at reducing regulatory barriers to new construction — making the timing of a tariff on building materials especially glaring.
“Expanding this tariff action to more forest products categories is deeply disappointing. Just two weeks ago, Congress passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act… to reduce regulatory barriers and help communities build more homes. This trade action flies completely in the face of that effort. Tariffs on the very materials used to build homes, renovate properties, and support North American construction supply chains will only make housing more expensive for American families.”
— Derek Nighbor, President and CEO, Forest Products Association of Canada, FPAC
The affordability concern is not abstract. Rising material costs have repeatedly been shown to add thousands of dollars to new-home building costs, and a 50% duty on covered wood products threatens to push those figures higher at a moment when U.S. buyers are already stretched.
Jobs and an Integrated North American Supply Chain
Beyond consumer prices, the industry warns of direct harm to forestry employment. FPAC cautioned that the new tariffs threaten forestry jobs across Northwestern Ontario and other export-dependent regions, where mills and their surrounding communities live and die on access to the U.S. market. Those pressures compound an already difficult stretch for the sector, part of a broader B.C. forestry crisis of curtailments and layoffs.
The Ontario Forest Industries Association echoed the concern from Washington, where its leadership was meeting with U.S. officials when the tariffs landed. OFIA framed the duties as a threat to a supply chain in which logs, lumber and finished wood products routinely cross the border multiple times before reaching a buyer. That integration means a tariff levied at one crossing can cascade through several stages of production, inflating the final price of goods that are, in practical terms, built jointly by workers in both countries. For single-industry towns, where a mill is often the largest employer, even a temporary loss of U.S. market access can translate quickly into reduced shifts and idled lines.
“represent a drastic and unjustified barrier to a highly integrated North American supply chain.”
— Ian Dunn, President and CEO, Ontario Forest Industries Association, Wood Business
What the Industry Wants Next
With the duties set to take effect 30 days after signing, the forest sector is pressing for the measures to be reversed or negotiated away before they bite. FPAC’s argument is pragmatic: because Canadian and American wood supply chains are so intertwined, tariffs designed to punish Canada will also raise costs and risk jobs on the U.S. side. That framing is aimed at American homebuilders, manufacturers and lawmakers as much as at Ottawa.
Whether the appeal lands is another question. For now, Canada’s forest industry has planted a clear marker: the tariffs, it argues, work against Washington’s own housing goals and against the shared economy that both countries have spent decades building. The coming weeks will show whether that message reshapes the policy — or whether mills brace for a costly new normal.
