New Senate Bill Aims To Lower Home Prices by Cutting Tariffs on Building Materials

A group of Senate Democrats introduced a bill to exempt home construction materials from tariffs, a move the National Association of Home Builders has pushed for.

S. 3943 would automatically exempt a list of building materials from current and future tariffs. It would also require the Department of Commerce to create a process for companies to apply for tariff exemptions.

The bill's sponsors, Sens. Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Chris Coons of Delaware, said the bill is a response to the new tariffs President Donald Trump imposed last month. After the Supreme Court struck down many he imposed under emergency powers, Trump imposed new ones under different legal justifications.

"We know that one way to address the affordable housing crisis is by making it easier and cheaper for developers to build more housing—but Trump has done the complete opposite over the past year by imposing cost-raising tariffs on virtually all homebuilding materials,” Rosen said in a statement.

The bill's other sponsors are all Democrats. They include Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Andy Kim of New Jersey, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. All said they aim to blunt rising homebuilding costs.

Still, the bill may face an uphill battle. Trump doubled down on his tariff policies in last week's State of the Union address. He said other countries were making trade deals he thought would financially benefit the United States.

Builders say tariffs create market pessimism

The NAHB has been a proponent of excluding homebuilding materials from the tariffs. Chairman Bill Owens said the tariffs disrupt supply chains and introduce market uncertainty.

“Roughly 60% of builders have already seen cost increases due to tariffs, which means higher housing costs for American homebuyers and renters,” Owens said. “This bill is an important step forward to create more certainty for American businesses and to address the nation’s housing affordability challenges.”

The NAHB estimates homebuilders imported $14 billion in construction materials in 2024. That represents 7% of the $204 billion in materials used on single-family and multifamily building that year.

Some materials have greater exposure. Take softwood lumber, which is used in framing, sheathing, and exterior work. U.S. homebuilders import a quarter of their supply, and 85% of those imports come from Canada. Steel and aluminum, which are imported from around the world, are another risk. That led to a run on nails and other homebuilding materials.

The cost of building materials rose 34% from 2020 to 2025. The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index April 2025 survey estimated that translated to $10,900 per home. That was before tariff impacts began to sink in. The NAHB says homebuilders have since slowed the pace of their work on pessimism over the market.

"Lumber and building material dealers operate within a supply chain that depends on stable and predictable trade policy,” said Jonathan Paine, president and CEO of the National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association. “Tariffs on essential construction inputs have been shown to increase costs, create market volatility, and can delay or discourage new housing starts."