Certain steel and aluminum items, metal fittings and welding inputs from Canada carry a 50% tariff starting Sept. 15. Cement came off the list the same day.
President Trump issued five proclamations Tuesday that expanded Section 338 tariffs and banned imports of selected alcohol, dairy-related and motor-vehicle goods from Canada. The construction-relevant additions are narrow but specific: specialty paper, some steel and aluminum products, metal fittings and welding inputs, plus furniture and lamps.
What changed for material buyers
The new duties stack on existing Section 232 tariffs and apply whether or not the goods qualify for United States-Canada-Mexico Agreement treatment. That second part matters for anyone who assumed a continental supply agreement offered cover. It doesn’t here.
Several goods came off the Section 338 list at the same time, including cement, salt, toilet paper, and whiskies and liqueurs in containers over four liters. Deborah Elms, a trade and economic policy expert at the Hinrich Foundation, called the net change “basically a wash” and put the goods slated for outright import bans at under $1 billion in trade value.
“Of course, if your firm produces the goods now added to any list, it’s impactful,” Elms said in a LinkedIn post reported by Construction Dive. That’s the right frame. National averages hide what a 50% duty does to a single bid line.
The retaliation side
Canada began charging its own tariffs of up to 50% on Tuesday, matching the rates Washington imposed. Its list targets steel, dairy products, appliances, agricultural equipment, electronics and pulp and paper. For U.S. fabricators and equipment dealers selling into Canadian projects, that’s the exposure that moves first.
The dispute escalated after talks broke down last month over 50% tariffs announced in July, covering about $20 billion of Canadian imports including wood products, paper, machinery and tools.
The procurement change nobody is pricing
The bigger structural move is administrative. Trump directed the U.S. Trade Representative and the GSA administrator to strip $50 billion of Canadian products from the GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules, which federal, state, local and tribal buyers use to access commercial products and services. Public-sector specifiers sourcing off MAS should check their lines before the next requisition rather than after.
Materials pricing was already sticky before any of this. August PPI showed building materials up 0.2% while diesel rose 24.1%. Tariff changes at this scale won’t move a national index much. They’ll move specific bid lines, and welding consumables is the one to watch.