I just got this email from JDS. Pricing is going up even on USA produced products due to "Market Conditions" I thought the whole point of these Tariffs was to bring production back to the USA which will lower prices, or did I get that wrong?
March 26, 2025
We are all hearing about tariffs daily in the news now, so I thought I would let you know where things stand with us at this time so you can have the information to help you plan ahead. Right now there are really only two tariff increases that will affect our product pricing. First is the 20% increase to all products coming from China. This will have a very big impact in our industry due to the high amount of products currently being made in China. This 20% tariff increase started earlier in March, so we have been paying this extra duty for three weeks now.
The second tariff increase that will affect our pricing is the additional 25% tariff on aluminum and steel products. This 25% is on top of the 20% on items from China, so really a 45% increase. The list of items being hit by this 45% is not real large right now it looks like. It includes our Ultra sheet stock metal products for lasering and sublimation, Stand-offs for plaques and signage and trophy hardware such as ferrules, couplers and hexnuts. Rods are also made of steel, but we have ours produced in the USA now, so no tariff impact on them right now. Our brokers are still looking at sports medals and metal insert holders, they are made of metal, but not specifically aluminum or steel, so we are waiting on final opinion on these items. Price increases may not be for the full amount of the tariff increases. We will be working with our vendors to see if they are able to provide any price adjustments for us so that we can go up less than the 20% and 45%.
There will also be indirect impacts of the changes on tariffs. Do not assume that just because a product is made in the US that it will not go up in price. I already have 6 domestic vendors that have announced price increases. Some of the items have foreign content in them which were affected by the tariffs. Other items are going up due to market conditions such as increased orders at domestic factories so they are raising their prices. Most likely we will see more of these as time goes on this year. Aluminum, brass and brass plated steel sheet stock for example is all made in the US, however we have already been told to expect 5-25% price increases on our next order at this factory.
More tariffs are expected to be announced April 2nd as well. These will likely include many other countries with Vietnam being one that will affect several items our industry uses now. Tariffs in general will continue to be unstable and unpredictable in the future it looks like, so it is highly likely there will be more price increases necessary in 2025. It is our expectation that we will be increasing pricing due to the initial tariffs in late April. Once we have decided on a date we will send out a notice to allow our customers to place some orders to ship ahead of the price changes. I continue to encourage customers to not commit to future pricing on products to your customers due to the changing price environment we are in this year.
Best Regards,