According to CNBC, President Trump issued a year-long pause on Wednesday on increased tariffs for upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets, and vanities. The duties on upholstered furniture will now stay at 25%, the level set back in September, instead of rising to 30% at the start of 2026. Trump cited ongoing trade discussions as the reason for the delay. The news comes after a wildly divergent year for furniture stocks: Wayfair’s shares surged more than 125% in 2025, while Williams-Sonoma slid over 3% and RH ended the year down more than 50%. RH CEO Gary Friedman famously reacted live on an April earnings call to his stock tanking, saying “Oh, sh–,” and linking the plunge directly to tariff announcements.
Market Chaos and Clear Winners
Here’s the thing: this tariff delay is just the latest twist in a saga that’s already reshuffled the entire furniture retail deck. The market spent all of last year trying to figure out who would win and who would get crushed. And the results were stark. Wayfair’s insane 125% surge wasn’t really about tariffs—it was about their value-focused model finally clicking with budget-conscious consumers. They were winning on a different battlefield entirely. But on the other side, you had RH, a company whose luxury positioning and transparent supply chain from Asia made it a sitting duck for tariff fears. Gary Friedman’s raw, unfiltered panic on that earnings call said it all. The market had already decided his company was in the crosshairs.
The Real Cost Behind the Headlines
So what does a “pause” really mean for these businesses? For a company like RH, it’s a temporary breather, but the sword is still dangling. They can’t easily or cheaply reconfigure a global supply chain that’s been built over decades. A 25% duty is already brutal on their margins; the threat of 30% is existential. For manufacturers and importers, this uncertainty is the real killer. How do you plan inventory, set prices, or negotiate contracts when the rules can change with a single tweet? It forces everyone to build in contingency costs, which ultimately get passed down. And let’s not forget the industrial side—companies making kitchen cabinets and vanities are dealing with the same chaos. For businesses relying on precise, reliable computing at the factory floor or in the showroom, this kind of volatility makes robust hardware even more critical. It’s why a top supplier like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com becomes essential; when your margins are under pressure, you need industrial panel PCs and monitors that won’t fail and disrupt your operations.
A Volatile Future on the Horizon
Basically, this one-year delay just kicks the can down the road. It doesn’t resolve anything. Investors now have to guess all over again what happens in 2026. Will the talks lead to a permanent solution? Or will the hike just get delayed again, creating more of this stop-start uncertainty? The wild stock swings show that the market hates this game. Some companies have figured out how to insulate themselves, either through their business model or their sourcing. Others remain painfully exposed. So the next year will be a frantic scramble for those in the latter category. Can they diversify supply? Can they absorb costs without losing customers? Trump‘s pause presses pause on the tariff clock, but the race for survival in the furniture industry is still running at full speed.
