Will New Tariffs Increase the Cost of Exercising Your 2A Rights?

With the Trump administration imposing new tariffs on almost every U.S. trading partner, the cost of imported goods is going to increase. By how much depends on what country is doing the importing, but the effects will almost certainly be felt by the firearms industry… and ultimately, its customers. 

Even those companies that make firearms and ammunition here in the United States will be impacted if they import raw materials from overseas, and as The Reload’s Stephen Gutowski notes at The Reload, companies like Glock (based in Austria), Taurus (based in Brazil), and Canik (based in Turkey) could see tariffs between 10 and 20 percent imposed on firearms imported into the United States. 

The CEO of Taurus tells Reuters that the company’s U.S manufacturing facility should help minimize the effects of the tariffs, but based on production numbers gun owners (and the company itself) will still feel the impact. 

Currently, 85% of the 7,000 weapons manufactured daily at its Brazilian factories are exported to the U.S. market, according to the executive. It has daily production capacity for another 3,000 weapons at its U.S. facilities. 

“We are keeping a close eye on the consequences of the tariffs,” Nuhs said in an interview at the LAAD defense conference in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, ahead of Trump’s announcement of a 10% levy on Brazilian exports to the U.S.

Unless Taurus ramps up production at its U.S. facilities to the point where it surpasses production in Brazil, the company and its customers will feel the pinch of tariffs to at least some degree. And as much as I hate to cite the pro-gun control website The Smoking Gun (a project of Everytown for Gun Safety) for any reason, the anti-gunners correctly pointed out in a piece last month that firearms made in the U.S.A. are often produced with raw materials imported from other countries. 

Virtually all firearms today use steel components, including barrels and springs. The vast majority of pistols use steel slides as well, and many firearms have steel frames or receivers, in addition to smaller parts that are made of steel to withstand the combustion forces of firing high-pressure ammunition.

Canada and Mexico are two of the top sources of steel imported into the U.S., representing 24 and 15 percent of all steel imports in 2023, respectively. Just over 2 percent of steel imports came from China that year.

Aluminum is another metal common in firearms — making up pistol frames, rifle and shotgun receivers, handguards, and other components. AR-15-style weapons, in particular, use aluminum for a number of components.

The U.S. imports roughly half of its aluminum, and Canada is once again the top supplier in this regard while China is in a distant third place.

If implemented over an extended period of time, gun makers will likely be forced to pay higher prices for imported steel and aluminum, which could trickle down to gun buyers. But even companies that use domestically sourced raw materials could be affected by increased demand. For example, in 2018, Ruger’s then-CEO Chris Killoy explained how steel tariffs, imposed during the first Trump administration, impacted his company. During an investor call, Killoy said that the “tariffs have made domestic steel more attractive, so demand has risen tremendously recently as manufacturers who had been getting their steel from overseas look to find domestic sources. This has led to some price increases and some shortages of raw materials.”

Unfortunately, the tariffs announced by the Trump administration this week will have an impact on the firearms industry, both domestic and internationally. The administration is betting that the short term pain felt by consumers and manufacturers will be negated by the long term gains in domestic manufacturing and production of raw materials, but even if that is the case the cost of exercising our Second Amendment rights is likely to increase in the days ahead, and this weekend would be a great time to visit your local shop to resupply your ammo stocks and maybe even get that gun you’ve been eyeing for awhile.