Trump’s Trade Wars Are Having a Very Unexpected Effect on Housing. But Not Where You Think.

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President Donald Trump has set in motion an ambitious housing plan that promises to double the rate of homebuilding, finance affordable housing, and develop new construction technology.

In Canada, that is.

“In the face of President Trump’s tariffs, we need to build for Canadians,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said this week, pitching tens of billions in housing investment as a kind of industrial policy response to Trump. Indeed, that Carney—who replaced Justin Trudeau last month and will lead Canada’s Liberal Party into an election on April 28—is in this position at all is thanks to Trump’s seismic effect on politics in Canada, where his tariffs and annexation threats have revived the fortunes of the country’s Liberal Party.

For Americans, it’s a look at what a functional federal government might try to do to address the nation’s housing affordability crisis. Carney’s Build Canada Homes plan calls for the Canadian government to become an actual builder of affordable housing—a strategy that the U.S. mostly abandoned in the 1...
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