As Lumber Prices Hit Four-Year Highs, Biggs Keeps Defending the Tariffs

As lumber prices have climbed to their highest levels in four years, making it even more expensive to build and buy a home, Andy Biggs keeps backing the Washington tariffs driving those costs up.

The Wall Street Journal reports that lumber prices are 23 percent higher than a year ago even as demand remains flat, with “reduced supply rather than unyielding demand” driving the increase as imports fall because of steep duties and tariffs on Canadian lumber. Home builders say the higher lumber prices have become a “headwind” and will ultimately filter through to the cost of new homes.

Biggs voted to protect Washington's tariffs, pushed to expand them further, and has even called them "a brilliant economic strategy." As Arizonans face rising costs at the checkout counter, Biggs has claimed there is "no inflation," insisted the tariffs are "not inflationary," and argued Washington has "tamed inflation" and "brought everything back down."

He was also one of just a handful of lawmakers to vote against the largest housing affordability bill in decades, a bipartisan effort to lower housing prices for Arizona families.

Copper State Victory spokesperson Nicholas Simões Machado said: 

“Arizona families are already struggling because of Washington’s cost-hiking agenda, and Andy Biggs wants to make it even worse. As tariffs drive up the cost of lumber and push homeownership further out of reach, Biggs keeps defending the very policies making life more expensive for Arizonans.” 

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