As current dealer inventories in the US begin to need refilling by the camera makers, each of them has reacted with an indication of impending price increase, typically centered around the end of this month (e.g. start of June deliveries).
- Canon — announced price increases, but not the amount, effective June 1.
- Fujifilm — announced that at least temporarily, the X100VI, GFX100RF, and X-M5 will not be available (they're made in China).
- Leica — price increases are already in place and vary, with a 90% price increase on the D-Lux8, 10% on the M11 Monochrome, and 7% on everything else.
- Sigma — announced price increases, but not the amount, effective June 2.
- Sony — has changed availability and Rebate programs several times, not yet apparently settled on an overall strategy. Behind the scenes, Sony has told dealers that at least one camera won't be available for awhile.
- Tamron — announced they're moving production to Vietnam for US products, implied price increases, but nothing specific announced.
Curiously, Nikon has been silent on tariffs. Indeed, they didn't apparently have a Q&A session at their just completed year-end business results announcement. It's possible that they just wanted to not have to address the tariff question. Also: I believe NikonUSA has an inventory of lenses above what they anticipated at the moment (Z System lens sales missed year-end forecasts by 40k units, and that was mostly high-end lenses).
Of course, everything "tariff" is constantly in flux. This morning (as I write this), the tariff landscape shifted again, with the temporary removal of the highly punitive 145% China tariff, now reduced to 30% for the next 90 days. What happens after that isn't known or predictable.
The operative US "strategy" appears to be "impose huge punitive tariffs to get attention, then reduce them during the start of negotiations." Several things to note about that: (1) I wrote "reduce" not "remove". All camera gear coming into the US is as of today subject to a 10-30% tariff. (2) Tariffs are still being negotiated, and thus subject to change. Most of the places we get camera gear from here in the US are under a 90-day temporary tariff imposition. No one really knows what happens after that. (3) Behind the scenes there are other impacts happening, particularly with supply chains (even if the supply never enters/leaves the US). China's temporary closure of their rare earth materials exports (now off again, temporarily) was disruptive to the supply chain all on its own, but it's just one example of how the supply chain suddenly started getting choked again. (4) de minimus transactions—things you order form overseas that cost less than US$800—are subject to tariffs now, though it appears that some China/Hong Kong/Japan businesses are currently absorbing that. I doubt that will hold. So those low-price, direct-purchase Chinese lenses are likely to tariffed at 30% soon (if they aren't already).
Tariffs are a form of tax. While leaders that should know better keep trying to tell people that "others" pay that tax, that's simply not true. The consumer ultimately pays the tax, typically via higher prices. For necessary goods (e.g. food), that's a highly regressive tax, as it impacts the poor more than the rich. For unnecessary goods—which includes camera gear—that means one of two things: (1) those who were stretching to buy simply don't buy because of the higher price; or (2) those that have plenty of disposable income keep buying but pay higher prices. Pretty much every macroeconomic model predicts the same thing due to those two things: an economic slowdown. How big or how long is impossible to predict because nobody knows what will happen next week, let alone in three, six, or twelve months.
I predicted chaos back in November. We're now fully in that chaos. I don't blame Nikon for not saying anything about tariffs, because what the heck can they say that's useful, even short term?
