The president added a new category of products to previously planned tariffs.
President Donald Trump said on Feb. 19 that he will soon announce new tariffs on lumber and other forest products.
Trump said at an
investment conference in Florida that he will be announcing tariffs on lumber in addition to other products he had previously said would be subject to tariffs, including cars and pharmaceuticals, “over the next month or so.”
“It’s going to have a big impact on America,” the president said. “We’re bringing our businesses back. If they don’t make their product in America, then they very simply, they have to pay a tariff.
“But if they do make their product in America, they don’t have to pay any tariff, which will bring ... trillions of dollars into our treasury, or it’s going to mean that there won’t be any taxes because we want to have a fair base.”
The tariffs will also extend to forest products, the president said, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One later in the day.
“Everybody’s coming back into America, including foreign companies,” Trump told reporters. “They’re going to be coming in because they don’t want to pay the tariffs.”
Some companies such as Nissan have
stated that they are considering shifting production to the United States in response to tariff threats.
The tariffs will likely be imposed at the beginning of April, according to the president.
Trump previously
said the United States could impose tariffs of about 25 percent on cars, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals. He said during a press conference on Feb. 18 that the tariffs would start at 25 percent and higher and “go very substantially higher over the course of a year.”
He said at the time that he would provide additional information on those tariffs on April 2.
Earlier in February, Trump
signed an executive order on reciprocal tariffs, or tariffs matching whatever amount countries have levied on the United States, as well as an order for
tariffs on steel and aluminum. Before that, he imposed an additional 10 percent tariff on goods from China, on top of the tariffs he had placed on China during his first term. The tariffs had been kept in place by President Joe Biden.
Trump had also warned Mexico and Canada that he would impose 25 percent tariffs on their countries if they did not crack down on illegal immigration and drug trafficking. He had said those tariffs would take effect in February, but he postponed them after speaking with Mexican and Canadian officials.
The tariffs have drawn criticism from trading partners and mixed reviews from U.S. lawmakers.
“Trump’s tariff threats & other misguided policies are raising costs for consumers & squeezing small [businesses],” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.)
wrote on social media platform X.
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.)
wrote on X of the reciprocal tariffs: “The avg. weighted tariff on foreign products coming into the U.S. is 1.5 [percent], yet the average tariff on U.S. products globally is 6 [percent]. President Trump promised to bring those numbers closer to balance. These tariffs are a step toward accomplishing that goal.”
