The Trump administration argued that steeply higher tariffs on imported goods would spur a wave of reshoring and reinvestment in US manufacturing. For musical instruments, that hasn't happened. Instead, higher tariffs have raised prices and suppressed imports—particularly of instruments for beginners—without boosting domestic production. And if the trend continues, the effects will narrow the pipeline of players who would eventually become customers for the higher-end instruments the United States does make.
In the first quarter of 2026, the average effective tariff rate[1] on musical instrument imports was 16.6 percent, up from 15.9 percent in 2025 and nearly three times the effective rate in 2024. The tariff pain has not fallen equally on different instrument classes (see figure below). Pianos and acoustic keyboards, strings (violins, cellos, etc.), wind (horns, reed instruments), and parts and accessories saw the steepest increases in tariff burdens, with effective rates for each more than tripling.
Anyone who was even half-awake during an Econ 101 course will remember that taxes affect supply and demand by increasing prices, thereby lowering the quantity demanded. And that's exactly what has happened. Imports of musical instruments are cratering. In the first quarter of this year, the total real value of US musical instrument imports[2] was down 20.4 percent from the first quarter of 2024, the last quarter under the Biden administration tariff regime, and 21.6 percent lower than the same period of 2025, when many US firms temporarily boosted imports to front-run anticipated Trump administration tariffs.
Like many global industries, musical instrument making has specialized according to wage levels, with Europe, Japan, South Korea, and the United States making professional-grade instruments while China, Indonesia, and other lower- and middle-income countries cater to the lower-cost, lower-margin beginner and intermediate markets. Companies like Gibson are able to sell versions of the iconic Les Paul electric guitar for $199 to the aspiring teen rocker mowing lawns and $9,999 to the professional musician[3] because they produce globally. The same general story holds across all major classes of instruments. There is no significant US student-instrument manufacturing base to protect.
Band and orchestral instruments have been hit the hardest. In the first quarter of 2026, real imports of orchestral strings and wind instruments were down 42.3 percent and 23.2 percent, respectively, from the first three months of 2024. A drop in imports from China accounted for 70 percent of the decrease in orchestral strings and 29 percent of wind instruments, respectively. The vast majority of these forgone Chinese imports were of student- and beginner-grade instruments, the workhorses of both school music and private lesson programs. These losses translate directly into fewer low-priced instruments available for cost-sensitive consumers. These affordable instruments can provide the gateway for student musicians to begin a lifetime as players and eventually buyers of higher-grade, US-made instruments. Low-cost instrument imports are the seed corn of tomorrow's high-end instrument market. The tariffs are decimating the musical instrument industry's future customer base, with the effects falling hardest on the segments of the market that are most price-sensitive and dependent on public funding.
Tariffs are driving this dynamic in at least three ways. The first is the mechanical effect operating through the higher prices of the instruments themselves. The second operates through the Trump administration's higher tariffs on other imports, resulting in higher general costs for other goods that eat into discretionary spending power: For the vast majority of consumers, instruments are wants, not needs, and musical instruments are among the first wants to be sacrificed when times get harder. The third is a general brake on business and consumer confidence, both via higher costs spread through the economy and the general economic uncertainty created by the tariffs and the chaotic, seemingly capricious way in which they were implemented.
Parsing the relative contributions of these mechanisms is challenging, but also unimportant for the bottom line: Fewer imported instruments are making their way to the US market. Imports of US musical instrument and parts declined $64.4 million in Q1 2026 relative to Q1 2024, while US consumers paid higher prices for the instruments that were imported – instruments against which higher-grade US-made instruments do not directly compete.
This isn't protecting the US musical instrument industry. Conn-Selmer, the horn manufacturer that made Elkhart, Indiana the "band instrument capital of the world," is finalizing the permanent closure of its brass instruments factory in Eastlake, Ohio, as it offshores a major portion of that production to China.
This decision highlights a self-defeating, second-order effect of protectionism. Because these instruments are made of metals covered by Section 232 tariffs, higher domestic input costs decimated their profit margins. Ultimately, Conn-Selmer concluded it was more cost effective to absorb the import tariffs on finished goods destined for the United States than to manufacture domestically and export to the world under inflated production costs. Conn-Selmer is owned by John Paulson, a major donor to President Donald Trump's campaign and a staunch proponent of the tariffs-as-reshoring-fuel narrative.
By the way, US federal revenue from tariffs on instruments has been negligible. Since 2024, tariffs on musical instruments have generated only a trivial share of overall US tariff revenue, never higher than 0.11 percent. Through the first quarter of 2026, musical instrument imports have contributed 0.07 percent to total collected tariffs. And after the Supreme Court in February struck down many of the Trump administration's tariffs, very little of that revenue will stay in government coffers. Some US importers will be made whole through tariff refunds, though many will not.
Even as importers begin receiving refunds, there is little reason to expect that relief to reach the consumers who ultimately bore the cost. Tariffs are paid at the border and passed forward through the supply chain—to distributors, to retailers, and finally to buyers—in the form of higher prices. Those transactions are done. A refund to an importer does not unwind a retail sale from last year, and no obvious mechanism exists to trace the tariff burden back to the individual who paid it at the register. The money flows back to the importing business. The consumer who stretched their budget for a beginner violin does not get a check. And even if those retailers and consumers were to be made whole, the broader damage will have been done.
Musical instruments are a tiny fraction (0.04 percent in the first quarter of 2026) of US imports. But they illustrate the mismatch between the stated rationale for broad tariff increases and their actual effects.
Notes
1. Tariff revenue amounts and shares are estimates derived from Census Bureau trade data. The Census Bureau urges caution in interpreting these figures, as they are subject to reporting errors, classification revisions, and timing lags in data collection.
2. Real values for instrument imports are calculated using the appropriate US Federal Reserve deflator series (IPXVIII), with 2000 as the base (index = 100) year.
3. OK, let's be real: to doctors, dentists, and lawyers.
Data Disclosure
This publication does not include a replication package.
