Effect of tariffs

Ok, I'm surprised that no one has posted this... I suspect that there are some effects from the trade war on ukulele parts, or ukuleles from China. If so, are the prices going up? or has the companies been eating the cost?

I notice that on the Kala site some ukuleles are unavailable and I wonder if the tariffs have anything to do with things like that?

I heard on the news today that China is to impose its own tariffs on US made goods, about 10%, the same as your President has put on Chinese imports, whether ukes come in there or not, I don't know, but it was quite obvious that it would happen, when he imposed it.

The new tariffs haven't gone into effect yet, and I haven't seen any proactive price increases on the few things I've looked at that would be effected.
NAMM has a write up on this at https://www.namm.org/issues-and-advocacy/trade and link the lists of affected items at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jvkqk137x2ucu1s/AACczF3kylGkpwlv17mEciZLa?dl=0


There are two phases of 10% increases: one Sept 1st and one Dec 15. I'm not lawyerly enough to parse things like "String musical instruments, o/than w/elect. sound or ampl., guitars" well enough to understand which category ukuleles fall into

Arcy said:

The new tariffs haven't gone into effect yet, and I haven't seen any proactive price increases on the few things I've looked at that would be effected.
NAMM has a write up on this at https://www.namm.org/issues-and-advocacy/trade and link the lists of affected items at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jvkqk137x2ucu1s/AACczF3kylGkpwlv17mEciZLa?dl=0


There are two phases of 10% increases: one Sept 1st and one Dec 15. I'm not lawyerly enough to parse things like "String musical instruments, o/than w/elect. sound or ampl., guitars" well enough to understand which category ukuleles fall into

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There are enough ukuleles made in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. I assume some of the Chinese production will be shifted to other places as well. I would be surprised if Kala, being a successful company, hasn't been exploring their options.

For the U.S., any trade tariffs have a negligible effect compared to the artificially high U.S. dollar value. As long as the $ is so high any foreign goods will be very cheap, whereas it will be expensive for people/businesses in other countries to buy U.S. goods. Hence the perceived "trade deficit". So don't worry about tariffs for buying chinese ukes. And yeah I used to travel to Hawaii at least once a year in the last 12 years or so, but it is now so expensive that I am seriously considering going somewhere else for this year's winter vacation