I think I might sell my slightly soiled/damaged alllllllullllllla 6.5m duotone. Should fetch about $8k. A real bargain.

marco said..
Why? Doesn't bother us here in Australia or? Best brands are European anyway which will shipped from China directly.

More important is the value of the Australian dollar... and that hasn't been great the last few months. I have heard from a number of shops that gear will be a bit more expensive next season due to the poor exchange rate.

Impact on the used market depends on how overstocked the shops are.

Venomguy said..
Given the largest consumer market of foils, wings and kites have now slapped a whooping 50??% tariff, anyone care to speculate the impact on the rest of us outside the USA?

What ever gave you the idea the US market for windsports products is the largest?

Venomguy said..
Winging kit now 125% more expensive as of today!

Well no I don't think so. Any manufacturers with stock pile outside of the US will be trying to distribute to other markets at a lower price.

Thatspec said..

Venomguy said..
Given the largest consumer market of foils, wings and kites have now slapped a whooping 50??% tariff, anyone care to speculate the impact on the rest of us outside the USA?

What ever gave you the idea the US market for windsports products is the largest?

yeah I would think this is not the case. when I worked for NP (long 15+ years ago), we were at the sales meeting for NP Waterwear (wetsuits) and they were saying how their business in France was bigger than North and South America combined.

It might just mean that some of the production is diverted to Europe and Asia as demand here falls. Could actually make things cheaper for the rest of the world in the short term at least. Who knows.

Silly times we are living in... we used to joke that California, Oregon, and Washington should secede and become part of Canada, and now we can't even do that anymore.

Just relax, his plan is working. Now they've all come to him, cap in hand, the tariffs will all become more balanced and fair, which they weren't before, whilst China has been benefitting way too much until now. In a month or so it'll all settle.

The tariffs only affect trade to/from US, so I don't see why it would affect gear sold outside US even if it's manufactured in China. Americans will have to pay a premium for imported gear of course, but they can always buy local... That's the whole idea.At least Gong is located in France so I imagine their prices should stay roughly the same.

KB7 said..
I think the rest of the world gets cheaper gear as China made brands try to move more product to compensate for a slump in US sales.

Canadian retailers could be in for boom times as US wingers drive over the border to buy gear, sail it and bring home used paying no duty!

Maui board builders are also going to be flat out as suddenly a board hand shaped by DK or KT is going to seem like a bargain against a $4,000USD Duotone, Naish or Armstrong.

The DK and KT production boards are all made in Asia, not in America. Only the one off customs are made in HI

Mikedubs said..
Just relax, his plan is working. Now they've all come to him, cap in hand, the tariffs will all become more balanced and fair, which they weren't before, whilst China has been benefitting way too much until now. In a month or so it'll all settle.

I guess you are sarcastic... If not, just ask any economist.
Or just listen to this short explanation:Trump goes to a bar, order a diet coke. Pays $3.
He says what? I have a trade deficit with the bar, I buy their drinks but they do not buy things from me!
Since he is economically illiterate, he confuses trade deficit with tariffs.
Trump thus imposes a 100% tariff on the bar.
So next time Trump orders a diet coke, he will pay $6: $3 for the bar, $3 as tax to the government.

Now for a personal example of what the demented Trump Tariffs did:I am in France and buys my wetsuit at Isurus.
But since they are made in Sheico Group (plants in Thailande, Cambodge, Vietnam et Taiwan) as nearly all wetsuits,
they will pay a Trump tariff (around 40%) to import them in the US
then I will pay 25% more to buy from them from France with the retaliatory tariffs.
This means I will pay my isurus wetsuits 75% more!

I will then order Axxe Wetsuits from Japan. Better, custom-tailored, and now cheaper than Isurus.
(Or I could order quality OZ wetsuits, you get the idea)
The US company Isurus is shafted.

Plus obviously, no company will migrate their production in the US as the mad orange king can change everything daily on a whim. Remember: Trump imposed tariffs in his first mandate and it was a fiasco.

I'd let all the clever people work it out, rather than you lot. If it was simple you lot could do it, as it's not, you can't.

Mikedubs said..
I'd let all the clever people work it out, rather than you lot. If it was simple you lot could do it, as it's not, you can't.

But ALL the clever people said sudden indiscriminate tariffs do not work.The ONLY "expert" pretending that sweeping tariffs work, Peter Navarro, is a con man:
www.tbsnews.net/worldbiz/usa/trump-adviser-peter-navarro-and-economics-expert-ron-vara-are-same-person-1111331

Plus there is a famous historic precedent. Last time the USA did it, they transformed the 1929 crisis into the Great Depression and contributed to WWII.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act


And just look at how Trump v1 tariffs went. They sank the US farmers, who lost their markets, and all the money got from the tariffs went to subsidize them.And you see that Trump collided with reality so hard that his tariffs did not last 24h. Much less than Liz "lettuce" Truss.

To get back to the topic:
- Trump tariffs will not impact directly people outside the USA
- But they will trigger a global recession, or at least an economical slowdown
- So people will have less money to spend worldwide, and SUP/foil/Wing industries will have less sales
- It may make some go bankrupt, and other may reduce their operations (e.g less sponsorships, less models, ...)

colas said..

Mikedubs said..
I'd let all the clever people work it out, rather than you lot. If it was simple you lot could do it, as it's not, you can't.

But ALL the clever people said sudden indiscriminate tariffs do not work.The ONLY "expert" pretending that sweeping tariffs work, Peter Navarro, is a con man:
www.tbsnews.net/worldbiz/usa/trump-adviser-peter-navarro-and-economics-expert-ron-vara-are-same-person-1111331

Plus there is a famous historic precedent. Last time the USA did it, they transformed the 1929 crisis into the Great Depression and contributed to WWII.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act


And just look at how Trump v1 tariffs went. They sank the US farmers, who lost their markets, and all the money got from the tariffs went to subsidize them.And you see that Trump collided with reality so hard that his tariffs did not last 24h. Much less than Liz "lettuce" Truss.

To get back to the topic:
- Trump tariffs will not impact directly people outside the USA
- But they will trigger a global recession, or at least an economical slowdown
- So people will have less money to spend worldwide, and SUP/foil/Wing industries will have less sales
- It may make some go bankrupt, and other may reduce their operations (e.g less sponsorships, less models, ...)

Well put Colas.

you get the politicians you deserve. So happy for the US of A at the moment and when they vote him in for a 3rd term I will celebrate.

ZeroVix said..
The USA has a massive debt issue. Trump needs to drive the USA into a recession to refinance it's obligations.

Actually, the US debt is not a problem, it is a side effect of having established the dollar as the "standard currency".
When countries and foreign banks want to "store" huge amounts of money in a safe haven, e.g. for pension funds, they bought US debt as it was seen as the safest investment: The US would never default, and the US bonds were hyper-stable. Refinancing its obligations was never an issue.

The idiocy of Trump is to have behaved erratically and thus made the US lose its "safe haven" status for good. As soon as Japan decided to offer an alternative, it was game over in seconds, the US was headed to a major depression, and the (few) adults in the room made Trump capitulate. But the damage is irremediably done.

www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/world-suddenly-has-a-plausible-alternative-to-us-treasuries

Trump just made the US debt a major problem, and it is now not going away, as it will worsen with all the other countries looking for alternatives to US bonds.Eg: Canada itself went for the kill!

"This was the determining factor in Trump's surrender. Not the public spats, not the retaliatory tariffs Canada slapped on U.S. autos (though those stung). It was the quiet, coordinated threat of a Treasury bond unwind that bent Trump's knee. Carney didn't need to shout. He didn't need to posture. He lined up the free world-Japan, the EU, Canada in lockstep-and showed Trump the cliff's edge. Strategic brilliance doesn't get louder than that."
deanblundell.substack.com/p/carneys-checkmate-how-canadas-quiet

Tl;dr: The issue is not the kind of policy (free trade vs tariffs). It is the unpredictable instability, 100% un-needed self-harm.

AGK7 said..
I usually stay out of political discussions, but I have to chime in: I'm an American with a PhD in Economics from Berkeley and worked as senior staff at the Council of Economic Advisers under both Clinton and the second Bush. The idea that Trump is following some brilliant strategy that wil benefit the US, or that he is motivated by solving the debt issue or any other specific problem, is completely absurd. He has no idea how the world of international economics and finance works, and has done more to damage US wealth and prestige and the world economy than pretty much any other American in our history. The comments above praising Trump's acumen are nonsenisical and those who posted them should be embarrassed about displaying their ignorance so publicly.

I live and breathe the markets daily and I'm in the camp that the administration went into this with very little idea what they are doing and far underestimating the repercussions (both economic and diplomatic). My only remote glimmer of a hope is that they are trying to solve all of the lesser problems by using China as an example. When (IF) they level tariffs with other counterparties, part of those deals (explicitly or implicitly) will be to band together against China to force their hand. Probably giving them too much credit and the stakes are perilous on top of the significant damage that has already been done....

Of course China's defense is dumping Treasuries and then we are in trouble.

Velocicraptor said..
part of those deals (explicitly or implicitly) will be to band together against China

But their total idiocy has made people band WITH China, which now seems a more reliable partner than the US.carnewschina.com/2025/04/11/as-trump-targets-china-eu-and-beijing-open-ev-tariff-negotiations/I think people in the US underestimate the damage that The Zelensky trap has made to the US. Nobody now want to make a deal with US if it is to be the fool of a bad TV show. And ESPECIALLY China."the key is ensuring the Chinese they aren't sending Xi in for an ambush - especially after the tongue-lashing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky received in the Oval Office. "
edition.cnn.com/2025/04/10/politics/trump-xi-china-tariffs/index.html