| Cremations | 63.40% |
| Burials | 31.60% |
| Other | 5.00% |
* National Funeral Directors Association
A brief macabre parable from “Legalist” writer Han Fei-tzu (Warring States-era China, ~250 B.C.E.):
“The carriage maker making carriages hopes that men will grow rich and eminent; the carpenter fashioning coffins hopes that men will die prematurely. It is not that the carriage maker is kind-hearted and the carpenter a knave. It is just that if men do not become rich and eminent, the carriages will never sell, and if men do not die, there will be no market for coffins. The carpenter has no feeling of hatred for others; he merely stands to profit by their death.”
Whatever the merit of Master Han’s view of human nature, his specific example turns out to be wrong. People haven’t stopped dying — the U.S. bids farewell to 3 million each year — but the “market for coffins” is fading nonetheless as America’s bereaved choose cremation over burial. And as casket-makers struggle to adapt to changing American funerary tastes, tariff strategists in the Trump administration’s Commerce Department are hurrying them toward oblivion. Some data, then an explanation –
Materials, purchases, and trade: Americans typically buy about a million coffins a year. The median price is around $2,500. About 60% are metal, most often welded 20-gauge carbon steel. Another 25% are wood, mostly oak or poplar. The other 15% use synthetic materials or biodegradable boxes. U.S.-based manufacturers make about two-thirds of these coffins, and the rest come from abroad, mainly from Mexico.
Cremation vs. burial: Sir Thomas Browne’s “Urn-Buriall,” the classic authority on eternity and the tomb, views earth and fire as equally suitable for the last act: “Man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave.” As a matter of taste, though, Americans are steadily shifting away from the 20th century’s preference for coffin burials and toward cremation. The National Funeral Directors Association says cremation overtook burial in 2015, accounted for 63.4% of funeral services last year, and will reach 75% by 2035. One reason is cost — cremation is about $6,000 per service and burial is about $8,500, with the coffin price the main factor in the gap.
Looking ahead a decade or two, NFDA guesses that the shrinking number of burials will cut coffin sales to 500,000 a year. U.S. casket-makers are doing their best to respond; Indiana-based Batesville, for example, is broadening its offerings to full-service remembrance offerings such as urns and jewelry.
Now to policy:
The Trump administration has been publishing “national security” tariff decrees — technically “Section 232” tariff proclamations drafted by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security — for the past 15 months. One of the earliest, in February 2025, imposed tariffs of 25% on steel. Another, that June, raised this rate to 50%. By winter, according to the Department’s quarterly “Steel Executive Summary,” the average price of steel in the U.S. was $971 per ton — more than double the $460 worldwide average. They haven’t yet updated the Summary for spring, but last week’s “Producer Price Index” report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found the cost of “materials for durable manufacturing”* up 13.7% this past year.
As metal prices rise, metal-using U.S. businesses naturally lose ground to foreigners making similar things. Thus, in August, the Department added a third “national security” metals decree declaring that large swathes of everyday goods are now considered “steel or aluminum derivative products,” also essential to national security and therefore subject to the same tariffs. This included everything from silverware and pitchforks to condensed milk, exercise equipment, shampoo, and coffins. The buyers — say, a bakery ordering whipped cream canisters, or a gym club buying a new balance beam — had to figure out the value of their purchase’s metal content and pay a 50% tariff on it.
Months of public derision and angry business complaints forced the Department to scrap this particular decree last month and try a new version. This drops some of last year’s loonier claims — the restaurants and gym clubs are off the hook, as are buyers of mosquito repellent, shampoo, and windshield-wiper fluid — and instead simply lists a lot of things made of metal and assigns them new tariff rates. Paint rollers, flashlight parts, clothes-hangers, that kind of thing. Coffins – “iron or steel caskets for burial,” with the 10-digit HTS line 7326.90.8677 — are in Annex I-B, with a 25% tariff.
How is all this working out? As an economic matter, setting aside the ludicrous claim that coffins are a “national security” product, Mr. Trump’s Commerce people are providing a lesson in unexamined premises, perverse incentives and unanticipated consequences. After 15 months of tariffs, Federal Reserve statisticians find coffin prices up about 4.5%. In practical terms, this means a median-tier coffin now costs about $100 more. Looking ahead, by raising the cost of both the materials and the final product, the administration is speeding up the trend toward cremation and, therefore, the decline of American casket-making. Meanwhile, we’re left with the unsettling image of tariff decrees literally chasing Americans into their graves.
And what might be done? Sir Thomas, recognizing that all human debates share a common fate, would likely counsel equanimity and acceptance. (“The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction.”) Alternatively, Congress could — whenever it wants — save bereaved families some money, and provide a bit of help to beleaguered casket-makers, by putting a stop to this.
* This includes not only metals but the lumber used in plain pine boxes, which now also gets “national security” tariffs of 10%.
PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:
Reporting:
Mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control.
The National Funeral Directors Association reports on cremation v. burial trends.
Assessing the U.S. coffin-market outlook, Funeral Directors Daily expects sales to fall to 507,000 per year in the next two decades.
And a concerned state of the industry report for 2025, noting among much else “off-again, on-again tariffs policies that decrease economic confidence” that will likely depress consumer spending and lead the bereaved to choose less costly services.
Broader funeral market analysis from death-care consultancy Foresight, including an examination of tariff impact on caskets and urns. Sample:
“Many funeral goods – caskets, urns, cremation machines – are imported or use imported components. These come with baked-in increases from trade policy. There’s less chaos than peak trade war years, but costs are still up.”
And from the business side, the largest U.S. casket-maker, Indiana-based Batesville, looks to adapt via e-commerce and full-service remembrance offerings.
Policy documents:
April 2026: The current Commerce Department “national security” decree imposes 25% tariff on coffins.
… or direct link to the product list; coffins in Annex 1-B.
August 2025: The now-defunct “steel or aluminum derivative products” Federal Register Notice declaring condensed milk, balance beams, etc. to be made of metal.
… PPI’s Gresser, in the Wall Street Journal last fall (subs. req.), has some strong words on this idea.
June 2025: Section 232 “national security” decree, still in effect, imposes 50% tariff on steel. Similar decrees put identical rates on copper and aluminum.
And last:
From Warring States-era China, Han Fei Tzu (250 B.C.E., Burton Watson translation) takes a dim view of human nature and favors very decisive government. See “Precautions Within the Palace” for the carriage-makers and carpenters; other highlights include “The Difficulties of Persuasion” and “The Five Vermin”.
Sir Thomas Browne’s Urn-Buriall (1658) has a melancholy subject but a brighter perspective on humanity. Last reassuring word:
“[M]an is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.”
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.
