Here's what I can tell you from the industry that I work in every single day (foodservice design, so I deal with commercial kitchen equipment):
During the last Trump presidency he levied a 30% tariff on imported stainless steel. This made all equipment using foreign stainless steel raise their prices roughly 30% to pass that 30% tariff on to the consumer.
All of the US stainless steel manufacturers raised their prices 20%, because that was still cheaper than foreign stainless and it let them give themselves a 20% raise without being the highest price on the market. So all of the manufacturers that exclusively used US stainless also had to raise their prices to pass that 20% increase on to the consumer as well.
So what does commercial kitchen equipment have to do with any of this? In the end, NOTHING was cheaper and EVERYTHING was more expensive, across the board. The impact of that stainless steel tariff has not gone away to this day, because nothing ever gets cheaper. Once the price goes up, it stays there. Over the 4 years spanning from the point in which Trump levied that tariff on stainless steel through the COVID years (which, granted, were a totally different issue), prices for commercial kitchen equipment went up 20%-30% every 6 months until roughly the 2nd quarter of 2023 when they finally stabilized at the current prices.
I would expect that any tariffs that impact the musical instrument industry at all will impact THE ENTIRE industry. Because even if there is a builder out there using 100% US sourced parts, those parts suppliers will also raise their prices just under the tariff increases, because hey, a free raise is always a good thing for the bottom line, right? So anyone who thinks that a tariff will ONLY affect builders using imported parts is insane. It will impact the entire industry.
