What are you thinking, CYCLING RELATED, on tariff subject

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by prototoast

I believe if you buy a Giant bicycle with Sram components, everything will be made in Taiwan.

Giant owns manufacturing facilities in China.

[bigbill]

The numbers being thrown out on tariffs are a shot across the bow meant to bring the players to the table to negotiate. Tariffs on bike parts including frames, forks, and wheels are likely not on the radar compared to EVs, solar components, and electronics. If China introduced a $20k EV to compete against American made EVs, a tariff makes it less competitive. China has a history of introducing cheap (in price) products to capture a market, drive out competition, and then control the market. Without tariffs, they could do this.

For bike parts, China already sells cheap cycling components, and some of them like BTLOS are very good with great customer service. You can buy entire groups that look and work like srimagnolo. With the shrinking number of brick and mortar bike shops, we're ordering more stuff on line and when it comes down to it, there are some good deals on Amazon. Most of my online purchases are from BTD and Universal, but I also have a set of BTLOS wheels that are very nice.

[deluz]

I am no expert in economics which is an incredibly complex subject.
Often it is a matter of stating the obvious which is what happened in the past rather what what might happen in the future.
Even the experts get future predictions wildly wrong.
Trying to be apolitical let's look back at the 2018 financial crisis, was it predictable and preventable? Here is what I found:

None of this had to happen. The Great Recession was a man-made storm.
A special, bi-partisan government panel found the meltdown was avoidable.
“The crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not of Mother Nature or computer models gone haywire,” the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission said.
The commission found that the captains of finance and the regulators who were supposed to be watching the store ignored warnings and failed to ask questions and understand the risky investments they were selling or overseeing.



Nobody went to jail despite the carnage. This led to a period of QE which fueled stock buy backs both benefiting the wealthy more than the poor and middle class. Then Covid hit and the US government spent trillions of dollars on stimulus programs causing inflation to increase.
Now we have somebody who is promising they are going to institute tariffs, mass deportations of working illegals, mass firings of government employees,
reduce income taxes and reduce regulation. One thing I don't hear much about is the growing deficit and impending insolvency of Social Security. We know this is all very unpredictable as far as how much of it will actually happen and what effects it might have. One thing for sure it will be an interesting 4 years.

[herb5998]

Frames, Forks, and Wheels made in PRC and imported here already have a tariff of 25% upon import. Was 10% in 2018, the upped to 25% in 2019. This was on top of existing tariffs for bicycles (11%), for a total of 36% for bicycles made in China.

There was a program later on to allow some manufacturers of Carbon frame made in China to get an exemption, but this has expired at times, then be reinstated. They continue to now, and since June, 36% is the total.

Originally Posted by bigbill

The numbers being thrown out on tariffs are a shot across the bow meant to bring the players to the table to negotiate. Tariffs on bike parts including frames, forks, and wheels are likely not on the radar compared to EVs, solar components, and electronics. If China introduced a $20k EV to compete against American made EVs, a tariff makes it less competitive. China has a history of introducing cheap (in price) products to capture a market, drive out competition, and then control the market. Without tariffs, they could do this.

For bike parts, China already sells cheap cycling components, and some of them like BTLOS are very good with great customer service. You can buy entire groups that look and work like srimagnolo. With the shrinking number of brick and mortar bike shops, we're ordering more stuff on line and when it comes down to it, there are some good deals on Amazon. Most of my online purchases are from BTD and Universal, but I also have a set of BTLOS wheels that are very nice.

[robertbb]

Originally Posted by openwheelracing

When you say the BRI, I think it is great for World economy but you expect me to think otherwise. When you bring up XiangJiang, I am still waiting on concrete evidence. When you say Taiwan, I think about conservative KMT vs the progressive anti-China green party. When you say "Indian border", I think about the disputed line drew by the UK. Very different World views. That is all. You do you my friend. There is no reason getting pissed over politics.

https://www.theage.com.au/world/euro...19-p5ks2v.html

Chinese cargo ship suspected of sabotage of Baltic Sea data cables

Nothing to see here, right?

I'll stop. It's derailing the thread and it's like shooting fish in a barrel honestly.

[bigbill]

Originally Posted by herb5998

Frames, Forks, and Wheels made in PRC and imported here already have a tariff of 25% upon import. Was 10% in 2018, the upped to 25% in 2019. This was on top of existing tariffs for bicycles (11%), for a total of 36% for bicycles made in China.

There was a program later on to allow some manufacturers of Carbon frame made in China to get an exemption, but this has expired at times, then be reinstated. They continue to now, and since June, 36% is the total.

From a monetary point of view, do the tariffs on bike parts matter compared to the big dollar items I mentioned? Do bike parts tariffs impact our society or just cyclists who typically have some disposable income. Unless you're a commuter and using a bike made in PRC, it's a hobby. If someone can't pay their bills because they bought a bike, they should consider their life choices. The tariff keeps China from dumping product on the US market, but again, financially minor compared with an EV or solar panels.

[herb5998]

Bill, they aren't big dollar items. However, this thread is looking at impacts on cycling related items. While the tariffs are being paid by the importer, the knock on effect is overall prices on bikes or components.

If your preferred custom framebuilder wants to use forks made in China, they are pretty much paying retail now, and losing any margin they would have have on the fork (same for the distributor). While the overall price of a custom frame/fork is much more than the fork, it's one small margin being eaten up, unless a price increase is passed along to the buyer.

Parlee, Trek and others fought for the exemption of the 25% increase, so it's not all small/low dollar items/producers. The bill put forward by Rep. Blumenauer sought to suspend the tariffs for 10 years as part of an effort to re-shore production, though it hasn't moved since being introduced, and Blumenauer is retiring.