US President Donald Trump has imposed an immediate 10% tarriff on all goods imported into the US from Britain. That means every American customer with a gun or rifle on order from our best gun-makers just saw the price rise by 10%. Wth a standard best Purdey side-by-side shotgun now costing around £150,000, that means the price paid will be £15,000 higher today than it was yesterday.
Customers for goods in this range can generally afford the price increase but they will probably not like it. Whether it affects sales in the coming months we shall have to wait and see. It may be that potential buyers wait to see if a short term or medium term agreement can be negotiated to remove the new tarriff. If that is the case, new orders will cease and cash flow and security concerns will surely follow.
In a worst case scenario, we could see some existing orders cancelled and new orders dry up for the forseeable future.
A more optimistic view might be that wealthy Americans are not sufficiently concerned by this level of differential. If they want best British guns and rifles, they will pay the price, as there is no American alternative. If Trump thinks Holland & Holland is going to up-sticks and open a factory in Texas to placate him, he will have to think again.
I spoke to the MD of one top-tier British gun-maker who told me he was unconcerned "these billionaires are not concerned by a few thousand pounds either way, their assets are so wide ranging that their value goes up and down all the time. They still want what they want.".
Stephen Jolly, director of the Gun Trade Association advised members of the US anouncement in a recent communication:
'The Trump administration’s imposition of a 10% tariff on UK imports will impact British gun trade exports, mainly in fine guns and rimfire ammunition.
While the GTA can have little influence on the decision by the White House, we will be writing to the British Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Jonathan Reynolds, setting out our concerns and describing the impact we expect to see on our member businesses.
Separately, I have already secured a meeting with Sam Lister, the Director-General for Industrial Strategy at the Department for Business and Trade in the summer, to present our concerns and discuss possible solutions.
For now, we will have to let the dust settle and give the Government the opportunity to determine the best approach to this issue. The fact that the EU is facing 20% tariffs suggests there may be marginal competitive advantage on which GTA members can capitalise.
If members have views on this subject, might I ask them to email me at director@gtaltd.co.uk to allow us to collate a set of comments we can add to our letter to the Minister.
It is important that the gun trade is not overlooked as the Government seeks to re-negotiate tariff arrangements and embark on a new bilateral trade deal with the United States.'
However one tries to spin this, it is not a welcome development for the British gun trade. We may be heading for a spate of trade wars which will ultimately benefit very few.
Published by Vintage Guns Ltd on
