Trade row sounds sour note for US music students
Many face higher costs, few choice for instruments
A full-blown trade row between China and the US could lead to US consumers facing higher prices for musical instruments. In the case of guitars, the potential price hike could exceed 10 percent, industry insiders said.
Zhong Wenhui, a manager at Huizhou Deshang Musical Instrument Co, told the Global Times on Thursday that if the US really slaps 10 percent tariffs on an extra $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, which could include musical instruments, US consumers are likely to face a price hike of more than 10 percent for the guitars they buy.
The Trump administration unveiled the plan on Tuesday, after an initial round of duties on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods last week.
China matched the move with its own tariffs for the same amount of US goods and said it will be forced to take necessary countermeasures, as always, media reports said.
Should the trade row escalate, the affected areas could expand from the current automotive and agriculture industries to other sectors, the musical instrument sector possibly being one of them. China is a world factory for musical instruments, especially affordable ones.
“China mainly produces musical instruments for the US student market. The quality of the instruments has gone up significantly in
the past decade or two, and Chinese-made violins for example, are almost always the firs ones that students would buy,” a U musician, who declined to be ident fied, told the Global Times on Thurs day.
“Increasingly, the first instrumen of a clarinetist, trombonist, or anyon else in a high school band would com from China,” the person said.
Zhong’s company, which is based in Huizhou, South China’s Guangdon Province, has monthly annual revenu of about 3 million yuan ($450,000).
The city, which is a major produc tion base for guitars, turns out 50,000 guitars and 250,000 ukuleles each month. The city produces around hal of the world’s guitars, according t Zhong.
“The market for a lot of Chines instruments is for people who are ex tremely price-sensitive, like students. I you want a student guitar, it probabl comes from China anyways,” the U musician said, noting that a 10 per