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Don’t look now, but President Trump just issued more sweeping tariffs. This latest round stands to affect two groups particularly hard: homeowners and furniture and home furnishing companies. Thats because the new round of Trumps tariffs will see up to 50% fees applied to kitchen cabinets and upholstered furniture imported into the United States. Heres what you need to know. Whats happened? Yesterday, the president of the United States took to his social media platform to announce another sweeping round of tariffs, including a 100% tariff on some pharmaceutical products and a 25% tariff on heavy trucks. But smack in the middle of those two high tariffs was another tariff Trump announced, this one of 50%. The president said that from October 1, there will also be new, 50% tariffs on select home items, including bathroom vanities, kitchen cabinets, as well as other associated products. But Trump didnt stop there. He said that from the same date, there would also be 30% tariffs on upholstered furniture. The reason for this is the large scale FLOODING of these products into the United States by other outside Countries, the president wrote. It is a very unfair practice, but we must protect, for National Security and other reasons, our Manufacturing process. While Trump said that pharmaceutical companies that are breaking ground on manufacturing facilities, or have facilities under construction, in the United States wont be hit with the 100% duties, he gave no indication that companies could escape the 50% kitchen cabinet and 30% upholstered furniture levies. Swedish furniture company Ikea could be hit hard Shortly after Trumps latest tariff announcements, Ikea tariff began trending on social media. Its easy to see why. The Swedish company Ikea is the most prominent name in the home furnishing space in America. The companys store locator tool lists more than 50 locations in the U.S. Whats especially bad for Ikea is that relatively few of its products are manufactured in America. The company has previously said that only about 10% of the products it sells in the United States are made in North or South America. Roughly 90% of its products are imported from overseas. In a FAQ on Ikeas Spanish website, the company says that it has over 1,200 furniture suppliers around the world, and notes that The five countries that supply the majority of products and services to Ikea are China, Poland, Italy, Germany and Sweden. Given the number of products that Ikea sells that would be covered under Trumps new 30% to 50% tariffs, the company now risks a major hit to its margins in the United States. Fast Company has reached out to Ikea for comment on how Trumps new tariffs will affect the company. What do the new tariffs mean for homeowners? Of course, Ikea and similar home furnishing companies are the only ones Trumps new tariffs will hit hard. American homeowners and renters are likely to feel the pain of the new tariffs, too. Its highly unlikely that Ikea, like most companies, will simply absorb the cost of the tariffs themselves. They will first try to offset some of those costs by asking for price concessions from their suppliers. However, the next step is usually to raise the prices of the tariffed items, so the end-buyerthe American consumerpays more for them. This means that homeowners and renters seeking new furniture for their dwelling will likely see a hike in prices in the near future after the tariffs come into effect next Wednesday. How are furniture and home furnishing stocks reacting? Ikea is a private company, so its shares arent traded on the public markets. However, there are plenty of other publicly traded furniture and home furnishing companies. Surprisingly, many of their investors seem to be taking the news pretty well. Most of the stock prices of the home furnishing companies below are trading relatively flat as of the Time of this writing. Bassett Furniture Industries, Incorporated (Nasdaq: BSET): up 2.4% Hooker Furnishings Corporation (Nasdaq: HOFT): down 1.6% La-Z-Boy Incorporated (NYSE: LZB): up 1.6% RH (NYSE: RH): down 0.7% Wayfair Inc. (NYSE: W): up 0.2% Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (NYSE: WSM): down 1.6% One reason for the general steadiness of these stocks may be that investors have become almost desensitized to the near-weekly tariff announcements from the president. Additionally, in November, the Supreme Court is set to hear a challenge regarding the constitutionality of Trump’s levying tariffs against countries and industriesa power historically reserved for Congress. If the Supreme Court rules against Trump, all of the tariffs he imposedincluding the home furnishing ones this weekcould be revoked.
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E-Commerce
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman issued a housing market warning during a speech at the Kentucky Bankers Association Annual Convention in Asheville, North Carolina on September 23. Bowman noted that housing activity has slowed significantly, with declines in single-family construction and sales coinciding with rising inventories and falling house prices in many markets. Declines in housing activity, including single-family home construction and sales, have been accompanied by higher inventories of homes for sale and falling house prices, suggesting that housing demand has also weakened, Bowman said. Elevated mortgage rates may be exerting a more persistent drag as income growth expectations have declined while house prices remain high relative to rents. The result has been persistently low housing affordabilitya factor that has kept existing home sales depressed since 2023, stuck near levels last seen in the early 2010s in the aftermath of the financial crisis. “Given very low housing affordability, existing home sales have remained depressed since 2023, and at levels only comparable with the early 2010s following the financial crisis. I am concerned that, in the current environment, declines in house prices could accelerate, posing downside risks to housing valuations, construction, and inflation,” Bowman cautioned. Her comments underscore growing unease within the Fed about the housing sectors trajectory. While the central bank has held interest rates at elevated levels to bring inflation back toward its 2% target, the cost of borrowing has cooled housing demand more deeply than some policymakers expected. If Bowman is right and a sharper decline in home prices materializes, it could ripple across the economy, weakening household balance sheets and slowing residential constructiona sector that has historically helped pull the broader economy out of downturns. Her remarks suggest that policymakers are increasingly weighing how housing stress could complicate the Feds path forward on rates, particularly if falling home values begin to weigh more heavily on consumer spending and confidence. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}})}(); Whats happening to house prices right now? According to ResiClubs analysis of the Zillow Home Value Index, U.S. home prices are down -0.01% year-over-year between August 2024 and August 2025. That rate has deceleratedback in August 2024, the year-over-year national home price growth rate was +2.5%. As ResiClub has documented, this year weve been amid a widespread softening. “Widespread softening” here doesnt mean home prices are falling in every marketthey arent. Rather, it means home price growth has decelerated across most markets, and more markets are seeing home price declines compared to a year ago. On a regional and local level, home price shifts vary significantly right now. Some regional housing markets in states such as Texas, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, and Louisiana, where inventory has risen above pre-pandemic 2019 levels, are experiencing mild home price corrections. Meanwhile, tight-ish inventory markets in some pockets of the Northeast and Midwest remain resilient-ish, with home prices pushing up a little this spring.
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Precision agriculture uses tools and technologies such as GPS and sensors to monitor, measure, and respond to changes within a farm field in real time. This includes using artificial intelligence technologies for tasks such as helping farmers apply pesticides only where and when they are needed. However, precision agriculture has not been widely implemented in many rural areas of the United States. We study smart communities, environmental health sciences, and health policy and community health, and we participated in a research project on AI and pesticide use in a rural Georgia agricultural community. Our team, led by Georgia Southern University and the City of Millen, with support from University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, local high schools and agriculture technology company FarmSense, is piloting AI-powered sensors to help cotton farmers optimize pesticide use. Georgia is one of the top cotton-producing states in the U.S., with cotton contributing nearly US$1 billion to the states economy in 2024. But only 13% of Georgia farmers use precision agriculture practices. Public-private-academic partnership Innovation drives economic growth, but access to it often stops at major city limits. Smaller and rural communities are frequently left out, lacking the funding, partnerships and technical resources that fuel progress elsewhere. At the same time, 75% of generative AIs projected economic impact is concentrated in customer operations, marketing, software engineering and research and development, according to a 2023 McKinsey report. In contrast, applications of AI that improve infrastructure, food systems, safety and health remain underexplored. Yet smaller and rural communities are rich in potentialhome to anchor institutions like small businesses, civic groups and schools that are deeply invested in their communities. And that potential could be tapped to develop AI applications that fall outside of traditional corporate domains. The Partnership for Innovation, a coalition of people and organizations from academia, government and industry, helps bridge that gap. Since its launch almost five years ago, the Partnership for Innovation has supported 220 projects across Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas and Alabama, partnering with more than 300 communities on challenges from energy poverty to river safety. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}})}(); One Partnership for Innovation program provides seed funding and technical support for community research teams. This support enables local problem-solving that strengthens both research scholarship and community outcomes. The program has recently focused on the role of civic artificial intelligence AI that supports communities and local governments. Our project on cotton field pesticide use is part of this program. Cotton pests and pesticides Our project in Jenkins County, Georgia, is testing that potential. Jenkins County, with a population of around 8,700, is among the top 25 cotton-growing counties in the state. In 2024, approximately 1.1 million acres of land in Georgia were planted with cotton, and based on the 2022 agricultural county profiles census, Jenkins County ranked 173rd out of the 765 counties producing cotton in the United States. The state benefits from fertile soils, a subtropical-to-temperate climate, and abundant natural resources, all of which support a thriving agricultural industry. But these same conditions also foster pests and diseases. Farmers in Jenkins County, like many farmers, face numerous insect infestations, including stink bugs, cotton bollworms, corn earworms, tarnished plant bugs and aphids. Farmers make heavy use of pesticides. Without precise data on the bugs, farmers end up using more pesticides than they likely need, risking residents health and adding costs. While there are some existing tools for integrated pest management, such as the Georgia Cotton Insect Advisor app, they are not widely adopted and are limited to certain bugs. Other methods, such as traditional manual scouting and using sticky traps, are labor-intensive and time-consuming, particularly in the hot summer climate. Our research team set out to combine AI-based early pest detection methods with existing integrated pest management practices and the insect advisor app. The goal was to significantly improve pest detection, decrease pesticide exposure levels and reduce insecticide use on cotton farms in Jenkins County. The work compares different insect monitoring methods and assesses pesticide levels in both the fields and nearby semi-urban areas. We selected eight large cotton fields operated by local farmers in Millen, four active and four control sites, to collect environmental samples before farmers began planting cotton and applying pesticides. The team was aided by a new AI-based insect monitoring system called the FlightSensor by FarmSense. The system uses a machine learning algorithm that was trained to recognize the unique wingbeats of each pest insect species. The specialized trap is equipped with infrared optical sensors that project an invisible infrared light beam called a light curtain across the entrance of a triangular tunnel. A sensor monitors the light curtain and uses the mahine learning algorithm to identify each pest species as insects fly into the trap. FlightSensor provides information on the prevalence of targeted insects, giving farmers an alternative to traditional manual insect scouting. The information enables the farmers to adjust their pesticide-spraying frequency to match the need. What weve learned Here are three things we have learned so far: 1. Predictive pest control potential AI tools can help farmers pinpoint exactly where pest outbreaks are likelybefore they happen. That means they can treat only the areas that need it, saving time, labor and pesticide costs. Its a shift from blanket spraying to precision farming and its a skill farmers can use season after season. 2. Stronger decision-making for farmers The preliminary results indicate that the proposed sensors can effectively monitor insect populations specific to cotton farms. Even after the sensors are gone, farmers who used them get better at spotting pests. Thats because the AI dashboards and mobile apps help them see how pest populations grow over time and respond to different field conditions. Researchers also have the ability to access this data remotely through satellite-based monitoring platforms on their computers, further enhancing the collaboration and learning. 3. Building local agtech talent Training students and farmers on AI pest detection is doing more than protecting cotton crops. Its building digital literacy, opening doors to agtech careers and preparing communities for future innovation. The same tools could help local governments manage mosquitoes and ticks and open up more agtech innovations. Blueprint for rural innovation By using AI to detect pests early and reduce pesticide use, the project aims to lower harmful residues in local soil and air while supporting more sustainable farming. This pilot project could be a blueprint for how rural communities use AI generally to boost agriculture, reduce public health risks, and build local expertise. Just as important, this work encourages more civic AI applications grounded in real community needs that others can adopt and adapt elsewhere. AI and innovation do not need to be urban or corporate to have a significant effect, nor do you need advanced technology degrees to be innovative. With the right partnerships, small towns, too, can harness innovations for economic and community growth. Debra Lam is a founding director of the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation and the Enterprise Innovation Institute at Georgia Institute of Technology. Atin Adhikari is a professor of biostatistics, epidemiology & environmental health sciences at Georgia Southern University. James E. Thomas is a senior lecturer in health policy & community health at Georgia Southern University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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