Import tariffs to have a cost impact on outdoor recreational product manufacturers in the U.S.

President Trump’s import tariffs on steel and aluminium, which were designed to support domestic steel and aluminium manufacturers are actually hurting other manufacturing and end –user industries.

Last week, the Trump Administration announced 30 countries will face additional import tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium. Companies like Mountain Safety Research (MSR)—that manufacture outdoor recreational products in the U.S. using steel and aluminium imported from those countries could be significantly impacted by import tariffs.

“While these tariffs are intended to create a competitive advantage for U.S. steel and aluminum producers, we expect that they will create an unintentional, competitive disadvantage for businesses like MSR that manufacture consumer products in the USA,” said Doug Sanders, vice president of MSR.

Sanders pointed towards an important flip side of the tariffs that they are applied only to raw materials, but not to finished food. Imported finished products made in other countries, which MSR competes against will then have a competitive advantage over them, because an increase in raw material sourcing price will make MSR products expensive.

Sanders said that manufacturers in the U.S. will experience increased material costs, in both the cases whether they use domestic raw materials and employ U.S. workers or import the raw material.

"Fortunately, MSR’s Seattle factory already sources domestic raw materials for a number of our products, such as snowshoes," Sanders said. "For this reason, we actually expect the short-term impact to be relatively low. However, it’s very likely that the cost of domestic raw materials will increase as demand for those products rises long-term."

Products imported into the U.S. as finished products, such as LEKI ski poles, will not be impacted by

Rich Harper, Outdoor Industry Association’s manager of international trade is concerned about the impact of tariffs on outdoor companies that source steel and aluminium from Canada, Mexico, and the European Union.

“The tariffs could significantly raise costs for products like trekking and ski poles, tent frames, carabineers, crampons, stoves and other products made in the United States by outdoor companies that source steel or aluminium from Canada, Mexico and the European Union and lead to retaliatory measures against U.S. products,” wrote Harper in a news release last week.

MSR has assured that they will always work towards minimizing or eliminating the effect of increased material costs on customer prices.