At a time when Canada and the U.S. are struggling to address severe housing affordability challenges, the tariff war is pushing construction costs in both countries in precisely the wrong direction. While government leaders on both sides of the border have repeatedly pledged to increase housing supply, lower costs and make homeownership more attainable, escalating tariffs and counter-tariffs on both the residential and industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) construction industry are having the exact opposite effect. …Developers are already grappling with persistent labour shortages, elevated interest rates, soaring land prices, development charges and regulatory hurdles. Added to that list is now a new and destabilizing force: tariffs on key construction materials and building components that are essential to housing projects. …Every tariff imposed somewhere in the supply chain eventually leads to higher prices. That matters because the Canadian and American construction industries are deeply integrated.