{"id":186845,"date":"2025-09-28T04:50:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T04:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/186845\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T04:50:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T04:50:06","slug":"how-trump-tariffs-on-home-goods-expected-to-hit-consumers-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/186845\/","title":{"rendered":"How Trump tariffs on home goods expected to hit consumers, businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Use smart moisture detectors to help prevent costly water damage<\/p>\n

Place smart moisture detectors near major water sources to protect your home from expensive water damage.<\/p>\n

Even as the costs associated with buying and maintaining homes remains out of reach for many Americans, new tariffs on housing goods manufacturers will likely make it harder to remodel and decorate, with dire consequences for much of the home goods industry, not to mention the broader economy.<\/p>\n

The tariffs, announced on Truth Social on Sept. 25<\/a> by President Trump<\/a>, include a 30% levy on upholstered furniture, and 50% on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople haven’t been able to trade over or up in housing for so many reasons,\u201d said Maggie Kulyk, founder and CEO of Chicory Wealth, a wealth advisory firm. \u00a0\u201cWages have not kept pace with the inflation of the housing market. Then interest rates rose. So you’ve got people who are quite literally stuck in place. And now they want kitchen cabinets. Well, they\u2019re going to pay more and they might not get them for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

More: Why is housing so expensive? There simply aren’t enough homes.<\/a><\/p>\n

What does \u201cpaying more\u201d mean? Remodeling experts interviewed by USA TODAY in April, after the first round of tariffs were rolled out, estimated that the cost of renovating a home could rise as much as 25%<\/a>. An additional 50% levy on cabinets and vanities could jack up that estimate.<\/p>\n

A summary from This Old House<\/a> suggests that lower-end, prefabricated bathroom vanities can be had for as little as $100 to $2,600, while custom-built versions may cost as much as $2,800. Installation may be hundreds or even thousands more \u2013 but, as Kulyk points out, many immigrant communities that may traditionally have supplied the labor for such installations are being targeted for deportations.<\/p>\n

Data from home-services company Angi, meanwhile, shows that homeowners can expect to spend, on average, $6,317 on cabinets, although projects may cost<\/a> as little as\u00a0$1,978\u00a0and as much as\u00a0$11,044.<\/p>\n

American producers of kitchen cabinets may be one of the few players happy with the new tariffs. Two industry groups, the American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance and the Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association, have advocated for tariffs \u201cof at least 100%,\u201d they say, \u201cto stop the flood of foreign imports.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two groups, in materials posted online<\/a>, write that over 250,000 American jobs are at stake as countries including Mexico, Vietnam, and Malaysia bring cheaper products from China into the U.S.<\/p>\n

How strong is the economy?<\/p>\n

While reshoring American manufacturing and protecting domestic jobs<\/a> may be the goal, some observers are concerned that these policy steps are being taken at the expense of moderate-income Americans, many of whom are struggling to keep up.<\/p>\n

Official economic data currently shows that the American economy is strong and has remained resilient in the face of the White House\u2019s shock-and-awe tariff policies. Economic output, or GDP, rose 3.8% in the second quarter of 2025, the Commerce Department said<\/a> on Sept. 25, driven by a healthy 2.5% increase in consumer spending.<\/p>\n

But Kulyk is struck by recent reporting that shows that it\u2019s higher-end shoppers propping up consumer spending. Recent research from the Boston Fed<\/a> bears out a February analysis from Moody\u2019s Analytics<\/a> that found that the top 10% of earners \u2013 households making about $250,000 a year or more \u2013 account for one-half of all spending.<\/p>\n

For everyone else, however, things are getting more challenging. Average credit scores are declining<\/a> for many Americans, and many are struggling to repay student loans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re living in a very dangerous situation, both politically and macroeconomically,\u201d Kulyk said in an interview. \u201cI do think that when the rubber hits the road and some of the folks who are only making $200,000 a year realize they thought they had a seat at the table, but now they’re on the menu, then we’re going to see significantly more social unrest, potentially.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tariffs cause ‘total turmoil’ in industry<\/p>\n

In the home goods industry, meanwhile, tariffs are causing \u201ctotal turmoil,\u201d according to Barbara Karpf, founder and president of DecoratorsBest, one of the premier online suppliers of products like textiles and wallpaper traditionally only available to tradespeople.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of companies are just discontinuing or closing out a lot of their product,\u201d Karpf said in an interview. \u201cThey\u2019re selling less product and the companies abroad are stuck with products in production, and some things are in transit, and are going to sit in warehouses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if some companies are open to the idea of reshoring manufacturing, there\u2019s no way to start production in a matter of months, let alone by Oct. 1. Some of Karpf\u2019s contacts have researched the possibility, only to learn that the machinery they would need is now prohibitively expensive thanks to earlier tariffs. Some are discontinuing various product lines, and others are cutting workers or closing altogether.<\/p>\n

DecoratorsBest is doing well, Karpf said, but she\u2019s had to table plans to hire more workers and other investments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t disagree with some of the reciprocal tariffs or wanting to bring money back into the government. I respect that the president is taking a new stance. I understand some of it,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the randomness of it and the lack of notice, this is not a way to do business. You can\u2019t grow or flourish, you just pray that you wake up and there\u2019s not another tariff tweet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Use smart moisture detectors to help prevent costly water damage Place smart moisture detectors near major water sources…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[13716,414,28,122,109608,13715,17809,14804,12,101,19481,49413,58689,109611,1149,2976,109609,56002,64239,66051,109610,2053,15995,4624,36677,66046,3729,102006,6377,34645,3,13470,34647,6160,69482,759,3479],"class_list":["post-186845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-affiliate","tag-and","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-cabinetry","tag-content","tag-decor","tag-donald","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-economy-news","tag-furnishings","tag-gannett","tag-gannett-home-and-garden-content-national","tag-garden","tag-home","tag-home-decor-shops","tag-home-furnishings","tag-home-improvement","tag-home-improvement-hub","tag-home-renovations","tag-housing","tag-hub","tag-import","tag-import-tariffs","tag-improvement","tag-local","tag-local-affiliate-home-improvement","tag-national","tag-negative","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-negative","tag-renovations","tag-shops","tag-tariffs","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}