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On April 2, the United States Government announced a 24% tariff on goods from Japan. The tariff is scheduled to come into place on April 9, 2025. If and when it does, that will increase the cost of goods imported to the United States from Japan by 24%.
As you know, most Canon camera and lens products are manufactured in Japan. That would mean that a brand-new EOS R5 Mark II will immediately cost 24% more to enter the United States.
Will price increases be coming soon?
The tariff would not affect products that Canon USA has already imported and may warehouse in the United States before sending it on to dealers. Once that inventory is gone, it will be unlikely that there won't be significant price increases across the board for Canon gear from Japan.
There isn't really much Canon Japan could do to offset the tariff to Canon USA. A tariff is charged based on the country of origin. Canon Japan couldn't simply move their products to another country and then ship it to the United States to avoid the tariff.
Is it now the time to buy?
For the moment, we don't have any idea how this is all going to play out, but everyone should be aware of what is potentially coming. If you're in the market for Canon gear over the next month or two, you may want to accelerate those plans.
This story will probably have some more twists and turns in the coming days, weeks and months.
Unfortunately, the margins on cameras and lenses are very small. 9 to 12 points. A lot of retailers run on a negative operating margin on Canon camera and lens SKUs. Canon USA may eat a bit of it, but they are running on the same tight margins.
I will ask a couple of people about this. A lot of times retailers have the products a week or two in advance of the allowed ship date. If they have them, then Canon USA has them earlier.
Stocks: Since they are expensive, don't expect large warehouse stocks. Premium cameras are usually air freight, volume products by ship. But customs is a difficult topic and you can clear a shipment (pay customs) in advance. So maybe a "PowerShot V1 container", somewhere on the pacific, is just fine in that regard.
But for the rest... I guess the V1 and R50 V are also produced in Taiwan (32 % tariff), like the original R50. In the end, it doesn't matter if it's 24 or 32 %: Neither Canon nor a retailer could make up that amount. So they will get more exppensive.
Canon pricing has been at or lower than the USA pricing for a while now (besides refurb).
Our government has ruled out retaliatory tariffs as it just increases local prices for imported goods and hurts our inflation. We even run a deficit with the USA for all that helped us.
Trumps government doesn’t like that ours negotiates a medicine subsidy scheme at a country level keeping pricing reasonable. If it isn’t in the scheme then they can charge what they like (and do so).
They also don’t like our bio security laws keeping diseases at bay from our island but the US loves our wagyu and Big Macs will cost more there too!
We will certainly not holiday in the US for a long time to come.
Perhaps wealthy US citizens will get a 24% tax cut so their costs will offset. No promises of that yet
The proposed fee could top usd3m per port visit for stacking!
https://www.reuters.com/markets/tru...ompanies-maritime-executives-tell-2025-03-24/
They seem to vary significantly and hard to average/median. Most of the European vat rates are significantly above Australia’s 10%gst
https://thestc.com/strates.stm
I guess it also depends on how the relationship of sales works between the retailer and how the product moves from Canon Japan. If Canon USA is the importer of record, then Canon USA will be the one paying the tariff when it crosses the border. If they already have contracts with retail on price point, there could be some negotiation around who gives up margin or how much gets passed costs on to the customer.
On the other side of this, they may decide to change nothing and keep the price flat under the assumption that everything will change after another Executive Order, and choose instead not to go through all the work of changing pricing and just "see what happens" for a few weeks.
Bottom line, no-one knows what's coming next
If I get the tidbits that will come up in that meeting, I probably won't be allowed to write about it. 😀
That's probably on the table. The White House phones must be getting a workout today.