America Can't Frame a House Without Canada — and Trump Taxed It 45%

By The Decision Room

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15,000 board feet. That's how much framing lumber it takes to build a single American home — the wooden skeleton behind every wall. And roughly 1 in 4 boards used in the U.S. is Canadian. Of the lumber America imports, about 85% comes from a single country: Canada. America is the world's largest consumer of softwood lumber — and it has never been self-sufficient. Most federal forest sits in the Pacific Northwest, much of it managed for conservation, and a tree takes 30–80 years to grow. So for generations, the gap has been filled by Canada's slow-grown spruce, pine and fir — wood builders actually prefer because it's straight, stable and holds a nail. Then Trump escalated. In 2025, Commerce more than doubled the AD/CVD duties on Canadian softwood from ~14.5% to 35%, then added a 10% "national security" tariff on all timber — pushing the effective rate to ~45%, in the middle of a housing affordability crisis. A tariff isn't paid by Canada; it's paid by the U.S. importer, passed to the

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