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How Tariff Chaos Is Throwing the Music Gear Industry Into Turmoil

Here's how Trump's tariffs are affecting the music gear industry, according to experts and business owners who say the tariffs are bad for business.

In testimony Wednesday (May 14) before the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Julie Robbins, owner/CEO of EarthQuaker Devices, a 35-employee Akron, Ohio, guitar-effect pedal manufacturer, declared the tariffs are “putting us at risk of bankruptcy,” demanded they be “reversed immediately” and dismissed “offensive” suggestions that she borrow money to cover fees “abruptly imposed on me by the government with no notice and no consideration.” Although many music instruments are manufactured in the U.S., as well as relatively low-tariffed countries like Canada, Mexico and Indonesia, John Mlynczak, CEO/president of the National Association of Music Merchandisers (NAMM), recently told Billboard: “China is the largest manufacturing hub for products worldwide.” Gear-makers big and small say circuit boards, capacitors, resistors, transistors, fret wire, tubes and, as Walrus discovered, surge protectors, are made outside the U.S. — and many come from China alone. But Josh Scott, owner, creator and president of Kansas City-based JHS Pedals, which employs 40 people and releases 100,000 products annually, argues Trump’s prediction can’t come true in his industry, which relies on parts that haven’t been made in the U.S. for years, if ever.

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