I keep getting tariff related questions, and now we're starting to see the "price increase" articles, though without much specificity. A few are asking me whether the camera companies are going to change their product plans for the year. Still others speculate about trans shipment workarounds.
Let me explain what's going on, starting with trans shipments.
The basic idea that people are promoting is that by first shipping the product to another country—e.g. China to Japan—that the tariffs would change. That is not true. This was tried by some but both International and US laws adapted to essentially foreclose that. There have been some recent exceptions that got around a specific tariff. For instance, building something, disassembling it and importing it into the US as parts, then remanufacturing it here. Under the current tariffs, that wouldn't work, as the parts themselves would be tariffed the same as the manufactured item.
Next up, I've seen a lot of headlines in the photography press about "price increases." Most of those are leaks out of the subsidiaries and dealers about a temporary response. Without knowing what the actual cost of importing an item into the US will be next week, next month, or later in the year, the subsidiaries all seem to be putting a temporary halt to some of their future sales and rebates. That doesn't address what's already on dealer shelves, though, so it is highly likely that you're going to get contradictory statements: new instant rebates coupled with cancelled instant rebates.
You might have seen that "electronics" have been given a temporary tariff reprieve. I haven't actually seen anything from our government that specifically states which categories of goods are covered by that. The US complies with the "harmonized system structure" that was developed Internationally, which divides every possible product into logical sub-categories with specific attributes (which was why I was able to tell you that Camels aren't tariffed between the US and Japan). The current document of record published by the US is dated April 10, 2025 and basically only catches up with the 84% to 125% change in China tariffs. "Cameras" are not in the same category as "smartphones" and "computers," which apparently were what the administration referred to on Friday afternoon and which was talked about all weekend (the "Apple/Samsung exception").
So in terms of pricing, I don't think anyone actually knows what the price of any particular camera sold a month from now will be. There's inventory that needs to clear from dealer shelves, and there's new inventory coming in. Those two things may be priced differently.
My advice to all importers is to keep your prices intact, but add on a specific "Trump Import Duty Tax", much like automakers add "Transportation Cost", airlines add "Airport, Landing, and Security Fees", and communications carriers add "FCC and other Taxes." As a vendor, you don't want to be perceived as the one raising the cost of things. Point to the culprit, so that people know who to really complain to.
In my discussions, no one in the US seems to know exactly what they're going to do long-term yet. We've seen (or heard about) some short term changes, some of which were then changed again already. The latest is that the popular Fujifilm sellers (X-M5, X100VI, and the just announced GFS100RF) are apparently temporarily no longer being imported into the US, mostly because these products are not really in stock in the US and any new order FujifilmUSA might bring in would be subject to the China tariffs (which on any given day in the past ten days were 10%, 30%, 45%, 84%, 125%, or 20%, depending upon what kind of product and which day and hour you looked it up).
Which leads me to the question about whether camera companies are going to change their future product plans. Short answer: yes. Unfortunately, we don't know how those plans will change yet, nor do I think the Japanese know, either.
A source in Tokyo actually pointed out an unintended consequence of what is going on right now in this trade war: supplies. The camera companies were just getting a handle on post-pandemic supply chain, though image sensors were still a bit of an issue. The panic point in Tokyo right now apparently centers around the supply chain again, particularly given China's response to limit export of rare metals and other key materials. Tokyo will figure out what to do about tariffs in their usual micromanagement of the bean counting, but right now they're apparently worried that they won't have some things to count.
Ironically, here I am having to write about this topic (again) when the primary advice I've been giving people for two decades is that the camera gear we have is more than adequate, that we should all be concentrating upon improving our use of said gear. That's something I've been concentrating on myself the past few months, but if we're no longer buying new cameras and lenses in the future, it's what we'll all be doing.
