10% on lumber
25% on upholstered furniture
25% on kitchen cabinets
25% on bathroom vanities
Until recently the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security took pride in a sort of austere, technocratic reputation: an elite group of 600 experts who spent their time tracking avionics and biotechnology innovation, coordinating export-control lists in the Wassenaar Arrangement or the Australia Group, and evaluating about 40,000 U.S. business applications for sensitive high-tech export licenses each year. Long hours, code-word clearance, cryptic tech jargon, that sort of thing, plus a touch-grass reminder from the mission statement: “A ‘reasonable person’ standard should be applied to all decisions: How would a ‘reasonable person’ decide this issue?”
Now, apparently, not so much. The Commerce Secretary, Mr. Lutnick, seems to have converted BIS into a kind of surrealist comedy troupe, whose job is to turn mundane things like whipped cream, pine boards, and bathroom vanities into hair-raising and expensive national security alarms. In mid-August, for example, BIS declared condensed milk and cream to be “steel or aluminum derivative products.” Also perfume, balance beams, mosquito repellent, propane, and windshield-deicing fluid, and lots more things. As metal “derivatives,” under the Trump administration’s spring decrees, they are now “national security” goods subject to a 50% tariff.
One such pronouncement might be a weird anomaly. Two look like policy. Here’s their September 29 announcement about wood:
“The Secretary [i.e. Mr. Lutnick] found that wood products are used in critical functions of the Department of War [Defense], including building infrastructure for operational testing, housing and storage for personnel and materiel, transporting munitions, as an ingredient in munitions, and as a component in missile-defense systems and thermal-protection systems for nuclear-reentry vehicles.”
With this “finding” as foundation — your home workbench billets or IKEA purchase might be “weakening United States industrial resilience and placing national security and economic stability at risk” — come tariffs of 10% on lumber and 25% on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets, and bathroom vanities.
What? Most lumber used in the U.S. — about 35 billion of about 50 billion board feet a year — is grown here. It’s not scarce. The rest is mainly from Canada, with some more from Sweden, Chile, and a few other countries. So, no risk to America’s wood supply. Nor is wood critical either as an “ingredient” of munitions such as artillery shells, bullets, tank rounds, etc., or as a “component” of missile defense systems. As to “thermal-protection systems for nuclear re-entry vehicles,” old Poseidon missiles in the 1970s did use disposable Sitka spruce nose-cones for insulation during launch. Outfitting the fleet required about 50,000 board-feet of spruce — i.e., one millionth of annual U.S. wood needs. Newer missiles are said to mainly use a graphite composite. No worries there, either.
The main use of lumber is to build family homes. Per the National Association of Home Builders, a typical new house contains 15,000 board feet of wood valued at $18,000 to $40,000, or 7% of the median $428,000 construction cost. So the lumber tariff’s main effect will be to make home-building cost a bit more, probably adding one or two thousand dollars to home contracts next spring. As to why BIS also chose to tax kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and upholstered furniture, but not tables, desks, bookcases, or naked-wood chairs and church pews, perhaps they’ll explain at some point.
As deadpan comedy or performance art, “condensed milk is made of metal!” and “American lumber for American missiles!” aren’t bad, though probably best in small doses. As policy, though, they mean (a) you’ll pay more for groceries and furniture, and (b) specialized government tech experts who ought to be studying biotech labs and satellite factories, researching Russian and Chinese military procurement patterns, meeting with NATO members and Asia-Pacific allies on semiconductor trade, and making decisions a “reasonable person” would find sensible, are instead sifting through furniture tariff codes and writing up bizarre press releases. Either way, the joke seems mostly on you.
PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:
BIS then:
For nostalgia buffs, a summary of BIS’ pre-2025 work, from their 2023 Annual Report.
… the apparently dated but still-posted BIS mission statement.
Some international venues: the Missile Technology Control Regime (missiles, guidance and targeting software, specialized skin-cladding, fuels, etc.); the Wassenaar Arrangement (dual-use goods and conventional weapons); the Nuclear Suppliers Group (radioactive ores and metals, transport technologies, reactors, etc.); and the Australia Group (chemical and biological weapons).
BIS now:
BIS’ surreal September decree, on lumber, munitions, nuclear re-entry vehicles, etc.
… and their similar August edition on condensed milk and cream, perfume, propane, balance beams, and so forth, with comment in the Wall Street Journal from PPI’s Ed Gresser.
From the commercial side:
The National Association of Homebuilders on lumber tariffs, home prices, and mill capacity.
And a note on ballistics:
Per note above, the Poseidon C-3 missiles of the 1970s and 1980s did use Sitka spruce nose-cones as insulation during launch. (The Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum has one. Here’s a picture, with purpose and dimensions.) Each required a bit less than 0.2 cubic meters of wood, which means the full 619-missile Poseidon fleet must have used about 119 cubic meters over 25 years. Converted to commercial-lumber jargon, that’s about 50,000 board-feet, the equivalent of (a) about 100 farmed spruce trees; (b) three house frames; or (c) one millionth of the 50 billion board feet Americans use each year. Modern Tridents are said to have replaced wood with a lighter graphite composite, though perhaps the spruce is still a second- or third-best option choice.
At a somewhat further remove, Thor missiles used an “ablative” coating (a flammable skin meant to burn or boil off in transit from space to atmosphere) derived from the artificial fiber Rayon, whose makers use wood pulp as a base. Modern missiles can use that or different ablatives with a petrochemical base. In any case, BIS’ September decree doesn’t cover wood pulp.
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
