“The Trump tariffs will kill the guitar industry”: YouTubers discuss the impact of Trump’s tariffs on the guitar business
Donald Trump’s yoyo-ing tariffs are having an unprecedented effect on the global economy, and the guitar industry isn’t immune to this uncertainty.
One of the glaring concerns amongst guitar manufacturers right now is Trump’s gargantuan tariff on Chinese goods – which at the time of writing sits at a whopping 145%. It’s a factor that could have dire consequences, with YouTuber and Chapman Guitars owner Rob Chapman noting that “43% of all instruments imported into America currently are from China”, from individual guitar components to preamps, pedals and more.
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“I think it will affect many American brands,” Chapman says. “We’re going to see a shortage of Chinese products coming into America because people simply will not want to purchase or import them. There will also be big price increases if [companies] do [continue to] import a product.”
Plenty of companies source some of their parts from other countries. Even Trump-endorsed Trump Guitars are apparently made in China. Guitars that pride themselves on being ‘American-made’ often ship parts from Mexico or Canada. As Rhett Shull explains in a YouTube video, Fender famously had to change their ‘made in the USA’ branding following a change in trade laws; even Fender imports parts from overseas.
“If you’re like me and you grew up in the late ’90s, you remember when Fender said made in USA on the headstock,” he says. “[But] it says Corona California now. That’s a relatively recent change that Fender has made [due to] California’s laws and regulations around what qualifies as something being made in USA.”
Current Federal Trade Commission guidelines state that a product can only be advertised as made in the USA if “all or virtually all of the labour and materials in the product are domestic”.
However, as Shull explains, “California has enacted its own statute which prohibits using a ‘made in the USA’ claim if any part of the product is foreign sourced”.
The lack of cost-efficient Chinese imports is likely to heavily impact the consumer – namely people who are after more affordable guitars.
Rob Chapman points out that beginners may be unable to find cost-efficient guitars. This could have a knock-on effect on the wider guitar market, as cheap beginner models open the doors for buying more expensive models down the line.
Of course, American companies may be able to rise to the occasion. “We’re hoping that lots of new American companies will spring up and create their own product,” Chapman notes in his video. “[But] NAMM has spoken out about the situation, [saying] this will deepen industry losses and possibly spark a musical instruments recession.”
NAMM’s president, John Mlynczak, believes that the change could “devastate” instrument manufacturers. Much like Chapman, he hopes that the industry will be able to work together to make ends meet.
“We as an industry have to come together because the last thing we want to see is companies going out of business,” Mlynczak told Billboard in a recent interview.
“The reason why we have companies that can afford to build their highest-end products in the US is because they have the revenue from the mid-to-entry level products from overseas,” he notes. “Our supply chain is deeply interconnected.”
“It’s not like an instrument is solely made in China or Mexico. What happens is you have certain components that are made really well in China that are then imported for final assembly. Or you have a factory in Mexico that has a specialty in making certain components that are imported. Then they are assembled in the U.S. This happens because this work is highly specialized.”
Following on from her interview with Mlynczak, Billboard’s Kristin Robinson explained the full impact of the tariffs in a TikTok. In it, she breaks down how the music industry could suffer from the new taxes. She also explains how Vinyl prices are likely to rise too, due to the required materials coming from overseas.
You can watch Robinson’s video below:
@wordsbykristin
#greenscreen how Trump tariffs will affect the music business #musicbusiness
♬ original sound – Kristin Robinson – Billboard
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
