The American Guitar Industry Has a China Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About

The American Guitar Industry Has a China Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About Guitar prices didn't just go up this year, they went up for a reason almost nobody in the guitar world is explaining clearly: a stack of overlapping tariffs that now tax hardware the same way no matter which country assembles the finished instrument. In this video we trace exactly how that works, from the Section 232 fifty percent metals tariff on frets, tuners, bridges, and pickup magnets, to the older Section 301 duty that's been quietly compounding since 2018, to the one year US-China trade deal that runs through November 10, 2026. We look at real examples, PRS's SE and Core USA Custom 24 lines, Epiphone and Gibson's Les Paul Standard, and real casualties, Harley Benton pulling out of the US Reverb market and Fender's Moody's credit downgrade, to show how tariff math, not craftsmanship, is setting the price you pay at the guitar shop. #guitartariffs #tariffs2026 #guitarindustry #guitarpricing #tradewar #chinatariffs #guitareconomics #section232 #guitargear #musicgear #guitarnews #importtariffs #guitar #guitartariffs #americanguitars #chinesemanufacturing #prsguitars #fenderguitars #gibsonguitars #madeinusa #guitargear