Asian mills & lathes -tariffs ?

[Sprint77]

That is a good question. Given what I’ve heard it is thought there will probably be new tariffs where none exist and there may be additional tariffs where they already exist. I do business with some companies there (electronics). I get the feeling they expect new/additional ones however the egg isn’t easy to unscramble because some circuits (which are proprietary and not made here) use chips and some discrete components made in the USA or US designs made in Germany and elsewhere. But for something less complex and produced in either country (for example maybe a common file) I would expect to many it would be sensible to tax the import to protect the domestic product. Very circuitous way of saying if you are thinking about buying something like a boring bar and are thinking it could be hit with new tariffs I would make an offer today rather than later. Sorry to wander off in the weeds.

Hey Jon G I see you are also a Texan Gladewater Texas here I am working on some Logan lathe ELS leadscrew upgrades what are you working on

 

[verbotenwhisky]

Hey Jon G I see you are also a Texan Gladewater Texas here I am working on some Logan lathe ELS leadscrew upgrades what are you working on

There are quit a few Texans and Texas residents on the forum. I am actually from Sulphur Springs, have a farm there and intend to return, Know right where Gladewater is, welcome to the forum....

 

[Pylonracer]

Not to beat this to death, but l have been watching the price of new machines over the years, and there has been significant increase in the price of manual mills and lathes over the last couple of years. Salaries have increased, but so has cost of living, so disposable income has probably gone down. Tariffs have already been effect for many machines for quite a few years, but it is throwing the dice to say what is next. As others have mentioned, buying now is probably wise, I have yet to see anything go down in price for new machinery. I would be hard pressed to buy machinery these days and spend 2X what I spent on them 6 years ago, in my view Taiwanese machines offer more value/quality, but I gag at the current costs of machinery these days. Materials, will go up as well as everything else, but I doubt it will effect buying habits. There will also be loopholes to any tariffs, but at the end of the day I have little doubt that it will bring back jobs to the US.

Interestingly I recently visited Japan on vacation, I could find nothing that had a made in China sticker, not that there economy is in great shape but they have limited imports, and cost of goods/foods where less than the US when we where there.

Really punitive tariffs should have been imposed 30 or more years ago, that way there would have been some indigenous manufacturers still in the game.

My guess is that the tariffs are too late in the day to revitalise jobs in small machine tool production, although it will probably very much help companies like HASS.

 

[GeneT45]

My guess (and that's all it is) is that tariffs will be focused on preserving existing industry: automobiles and the like. If there are domestic machine tool manufacturers anymore, they're not making tools that most of us would get, they're making modern industrial equipment. There's the possibility that we could be struck with an umbrella tariff (e.g. "machine tools"), but lacking indigenous manufacturing, I think hobby-level tools may go without additional taxation.

That said, I agree with @jwmay that sooner is better - in part because we all have a limited time to enjoy our machines.

GsT

 

[ShagDog]

My guess (and that's all it is) is that tariffs will be focused on preserving existing industry: automobiles and the like. If there are domestic machine tool manufacturers anymore, they're not making tools that most of us would get, they're making modern industrial equipment. There's the possibility that we could be struck with an umbrella tariff (e.g. "machine tools"), but lacking indigenous manufacturing, I think hobby-level tools may go without additional taxation.

That said, I agree with @jwmay that sooner is better - in part because we all have a limited time to enjoy our machines.

GsT

I think you make a very good point. Bottom line is that we don't know what the tariffs will be. I can only hope that they work to bring manufacturing back to the USA. I recall the good old days, growing up in the 1970's. I took metal shop every year (4) of high school. I would look forward to our annual field trip to Kaiser Steel in Fontana CA. It was impressive, and representative of manufacturing in the USA.

 

[kiwi_007]

Did your wages stay the same?

My wages didn't go up by triple or even double

I bought one of these in 2003 for NZ$10k, by 2010 they were over NZ18k the last price I saw before they stopped bringing them in was around NZ$25k and that was well before Covid.

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Bridgeport style mills that were around NZ8k about 15 years or so ago are now over NZ$22k

But when I look in the USA the prices are even higher.

 

[davidpbest]

There already is a tariff on imported machinery from PRC. You pay for it when buying a machine. It also makes Taiwanese machines closer in cost. Although everything has close to doubled (cost of the same model machine) since ~10 years ago.

Price doubling in the past 10 years is equivalent to an 8 percent inflation rate. During the same period, average wages in the USA have creased at a rate of just over 3 percent per year. Adding additional tariffs to imported goods will certainly widen the gap.