Many people in US puzzled by self-inflicted wounds to economy

Housing delays

The impact will go beyond putting off projects such as bathroom or kitchen renovations, and make housing more unaffordable. The tariffs will also have a negative impact on rebuilding efforts following the major fires in California earlier this year, industry experts said.

Canada and Mexico, two early targets of the US tariffs, have major roles in the industry. The US gets about 30 percent of its lumber from Canada every year, and a majority of home appliances are manufactured in Mexico. Canada is also a top supplier of steel to the US, a major material for house construction.

Marc Saracco, a sales manager at wholesale distributor Capital Lumber Company in California, told a local news outlet that tariffs on lumber and appliances "would cost a homeowner between $30,000 and $40,000 per house".

About 15,000 houses were burned down in Los Angeles, and the tariffs will add $600 million to the rebuild costs, he said.

Saracco said it is "hard to stomach" the tariffs when he considers the future of his business and fire-hit Pasadena, where he saw his friends lose everything.

If the tariffs on Canada and Mexico stay in place, the cost of a new home construction in the US will increase between $17,000 and $22,000, on top of the current $422,000, property research firm Cotality said in an analysis.

"The economics are now upside down. Even incremental increases in the cost of materials, labor, and equipment make it that much more difficult to build a home profitably. This further disrupts efforts to close the critical gap in US housing supply," said Peter Carroll, Cotality's executive vice-president, in an analysis of Trump's tariffs and housing affordability.

The average home price rose 2.9 percent year-on-year in February, and is predicted to increase another 4.2 percent in the next 12 months, Cotality data showed.