Ham Radio gear prices set to soar with Trump tariffs says ARRL

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) has warned its membership today that the impending import tariffs of the Trump administration will cause major disruptions to the cost of Amateur Radio gear due to  almost all radio such equipment being manufactured in Asian countries. Given the wildly fluctuating statements the President-elect has made, ranging from 20% to 100%, import tariffs will undoubtedly make millions of products go up in cost to the American consumer and Amateur Radio will be no exception.

Bart Jahnke, W9JJ, ARRL Director of Regulatory Affairs, has stated that "All manufacturing brands will be affected, from Yaesu to Baofeng, from Icom to Retevis.  The long list of items includes much more than radios, it will touch things like Raspberry Pi computers and Hot Spots. " Further Jahnke suggested that as the Trump presidency approaches, "Hams may want to make those important purchases now of gear they have been considering before the prices spike  in 2025."

Expected big winners will be Canadian retailers along border states, US Hams are expected to just drive up North to such places as Radioworld in Toronto, Ontario and buy gear there, thus avoiding the import tariff that Trump says he will impose.  Jahnke said, "We don't really understand what the point of these tariffs is and we will be advocating hard to put an end to them. Can you imagine paying $18,000 for a Kenwood TS 990S instead of the current $9000 or $20 for a Quansheng UV-5r instead of the current $10?"

We reached out to RadioPlanet President Angelo Teffe (We had to change it from RadioWorld as they have no sense of humour) for his comments and said, "We are really looking forward to the tariffs kicking in, we are now considering opening new locations and hiring more staff to handle the demand.  Prices will be 20% to 100% cheaper in Canada and you can bring the wife up to see Fall colours in Ontario or tour the old city of Quebec with the savings!"

-reporting from RadioPlanet (absolutely not RadioWorld, we would never use their name, seriously it's RadioPlanet! We don't want anymore emails from RadioWorld telling us not to use their name, and by name we mean RadioWorld), Toronto, Ontario, Scott VA7SL 

The DIPOLE - the World's finest Amateur Radio News Source, like a Dipole there are two sides to every story, we ignore those sides, digging deeper for unwanted lobes and parasitic reactions.

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