Furniture stocks tumbled in premarket trading after President Trump announced Friday evening on Truth Social that his administration has launched a "major" tariff investigation into the U.S. furniture industry. This underscores what many consumers already know - that much of today's furniture, whether chairs and couches or tables, sold in brick-and-mortar stores or on e-commerce platforms, is sourced from overseas factories, primarily in Southeast Asia. 

"I am pleased to announce that we are doing a major Tariff Investigation on Furniture coming into the United States," Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

Trump continued, "Within the next 50 days, that Investigation will be completed, and Furniture coming from other Countries into the United States will be Tariffed at a Rate yet to be determined."

The president explained this move "will bring the Furniture Business back to North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, and States all across the Union." 

According to government statistics, furniture and wood products manufacturing employed 1.2 million people in 1970. By the peak of the Dot-Com bubble, that number had fallen to 681,000, and today it sits at around 340,000.

With furniture factories offshored to Southeast Asia, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs across the Heartland, trade publication Furniture Today recently noted that the U.S. imported about $25.5 billion worth of furniture in 2024, up 7% from 2023, with the majority of imports coming from Vietnam and China.

In premarket trading, furniture stocks moved lower: RH (Restoration Hardware) -8%, Wayfair -6%, Arhaus -4%, and Williams-Sonoma -4%. Inversely, furniture stocks with manufacturing operations inside the U.S., such as La-Z-Boy and Ethan Allen, rallied.

Great news for La-Z-Boy...