Because they fall under ‘wheeled toys’. Whew! Dodged a trade war bullet there.
So if I can sell washer/dryer sets on wheels… hmmmmmm…
Seriously? Then how do you explain Specialized and Cannondale(probably others) raising bike prices by roughly 20%?
I’ve noticed the offbrand, shipped-from-china carbon stuff on ebay and aliexpress had recently made their import-duty disclaimers much more prominent. That’s not to say there is or isn’t, they’re just making sure you know it’s not their problem.
Because if people don’t have a super spif Specialized or Cannondale bike all their Wheel Bros will look down on them. Or (worse) just not notice them at all. So they’ll pay anything Specialized and Cannondale tell them to pay to maintain their social status within the peloton. The bike industry is 80% appeal to authority, 15% cognitive dissonance, and 5% wind tunnel data.
Simple solution is to not have wheel Bros
I get depressed but I have a dog so it works out
This came up today at work as a matter of fact. So I ended up finding the entire list of what is included. tariff list It appears most drivetrain parts, cables/housing and kids bikes will be hit. What I found interesting was it listed “frames over $600” AND “frames under $600”. My interpretation is it means any carbon frame built in the Chinese market is going to cost more (goes for Cannondale too I suppose) (Does this include Taiwan also since it is ROC?). So, considering NO ONE makes “mass affordable” (less than $1000 frameset) carbon bikes anywhere else, your fucked and you’re gonna pay. GoPro has been making noise about removing US bound camera away from China, but it would pretty darn interesting to see if big boy companies (Spec, Trek, etc…) would even entertain beginning to move carbon construction back to the US, or to another country such as the UK or India.
I’m in Taiwan. This is my understanding based on the local news.
The tariffs on China affect anything imported from China. This does not affect goods/products from Taiwan. However, it does affect goods made by Taiwanese companies in China which are shipped to the USA.
As a result, many Taiwanese companies with manufacturing in China are considering shifting parts if not all of their production back to Taiwan, South East Asia, South Asia, or Australasia.
The widened scope of tariffs being presented by the Office of the USTR will cover basically all HS codes coming from China. If it’s not included now, it will be included soon. I assume Taiwan-based carbon frame and component manufacturers (e.g. Giant) will move production back from China plants to their Taiwan locations.
Same thing is happening in electronics. Foxconn, for example, is shifting production of US-export products from their China plants to Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand. They also split production steps - doing, for example, box build, configure, load and test in Taiwan, from China-produced sub-assemblies, to create enough value-add to justify tagging as “assembled in Taiwan”, thus avoiding the tariffs. I assume similar practices can be done in cycling goods. Everyone in the business is active on such steps right now. Consultants in import-export are making a fortune.
No. Taiwan is another country altogether.
Hah ha. Neither Taiwan nor the PR China thinks that it is another country altogether – even though more or less everyone else in the world treats them as separate legal entities.
They both say « we’re the real China, the other guys are fake ».