9.4.25
President Donald Trump's policies are exacerbating the issues that have led to the current crisis in U.S. housing availability, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman. Krugman, recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, believes that Trump's "non-housing policies," such as tariffs on critical construction imports "will discourage home construction" and exacerbate the conditions that have led to such an emergency. "Everything Trump is doing that affects housing availability will make the emergency worse," Krugman wrote in a recent blog post. Krugman believes that the U.S. is confronting a crisis in terms of housing. "Over the past decade home prices have risen much faster than the overall cost of living, so the popular perception that housing has become unaffordable is grounded in reality," he wrote. House prices have significantly outpaced annual household income in recent years, a gap which widened notably following the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), a trade association representing developers, contractors and associated businesses, has urged the Trump administration to exempt building materials from tariffs on Mexico and Canada. Mexico supplies crucial imports such as steel, aluminum, wood and plastics, while Canada remains the primary foreign source of lumber.
www.newsweek.com
