every economist agrees that protectionism does not work.

protectionism doesn't work for the overall economy, at least according to economists, who must know something.
but even if the cons outweigh the pros, it still has winners and losers.

besides, soon we'll be winning so much we'll be tired of winning. we'll all have carbon fiber American-made bikes and anyone who spells it 'fibre' will be deported.

While I agree with other posters that the article is weak, the topic is interesting. It got me thinking more about the economic implications for americans of US manufacturing vs overseas manufacturing, and what it was exactly that got trump elected as president.

What you wrote above is true, protectionism is in general a negative in rational economic terms. But there is a bit of a problem: humans, especially when making economic and political decisions, are far from rational.

So, yes, free trade means that, among other things, consumers benefit economically, as 95% of what we buy gets a little bit cheaper which means that there is a huge economic benefit when it is all added up among all of the people that get the benefit (the vast majority, if not all, of the US population). But, free trade also means that, in spite of cheaper prices and other benefits, a non-trivial number of people are thrown out of work, or lose well paying jobs and now have to work at much lower paying jobs. But, in purely rational terms, that economic loss is still far less than the economic benefits of free trade.

But, since humans are not rational, as a whole, our US population feels the pain of job/wage loss far more than the benefit of slightly better prices for everyone across the board. And that feeling of pain, while perhaps not rational in economic terms, is how the voters got us to where we are (politically) today.

Or, at least, this is my theory, but I'm not by any stretch an economist.

(On a compete side note, we do happen to manufacture in the usa, so, trump or no trump, we'll keep on doing what we always have ... )

There doesn't seem to be much of an acknowledgement of the effect of other countries reciprocating. I can image Boeing losing a multi-billion dollar order to Airbus over some stupid dispute over trade. These things make bike parts look pretty trivial. The funny thing is that US agriculture probably stands to lose the most and they overwhelmingly voted for the Donald. The Pacific rim is a huge potential export market for beef and pork, but you don't think they will feel like buying from the US if they are getting screwed.

I think if the USA had the facilities and know-how to produce bicycles and components - much like HED has already begun doing up in Minnesota, it would be a great thing for the USA bike market. But building the kind of bike mfg. infrastructure that Asia has isn't going to happen overnight. So I'm anticipating that if Trump enforces tariffs, it will have a short-term impact (maybe 5 years?) on the price of bikes.


As an American, I'd have to answer "yes" to that question. Especially if there was a decent American company standing behind and supporting the product.

I also think John Burke, CEO of Trek picking a fight with Trump via the Huffington Post is a pretty foolish thing to do as well. I'm anticipating the price of Treks will be going way up, or we'll be seeing some repentance like we've seen from Ford Motor Co.

tarifs on carbon fiber and on all the parts would push prices way up.

The biggest set back to Trump and the bike industry may be a loss of Federal funds towards alternative transportation. Make the country less bike friendly and watch a flat industry right now start a downward spiral.

......we'll all have carbon fiber American-made bikes ......

How much more can a Walmart bike cost with a "Made in USA" sticker on it vs. the ones they sell now? 10%?

the last i heard, the carbon fiber manufacturing (the fiber, the pre-preg) was dominated by china. i may be way off on this, but i think one consideration, if we got ourselves into a trade war, is whether we have enough carbon fiber manufacturing in the U.S. to keep up with a surge in U.S. manufacturing. even if bike frames could instantly cheaply be made in the U.S., tarifs on carbon fiber and on all the parts would push prices way up. yes, we could move to U.S.-based SRAM parts but many of those parts are, as far as i know, also made in asia.

So even if you set up a bike factory here in the US, you will still need to import nearly ALL of the components needed to build the bike......assuming those massive tariffs go through, all those components would be subject to them.

"or they continue making it, and just make less profit."

This is the funniest thing I've read all day.

Human behavior is incredibly rational and predictable given a basic understanding of the 'rules of the game'.

In the triathlon business the last company in the wetsuit business to have wetsuits made in "North America" (Mexico) had almost an entire year run of wetsuits fall apart!

Not sure when that was. Are you talking about QR suits? What time period are you talking about?

I had a fully US made wetsuit in the early 1990s (made by ProMotion in OR, but they have since outsourced to Asia). It was an outstanding wetsuit, it lasted a long long long time, and it was far better than what ProMotion sells today ...

What glues were restricted?

Federal regs or state regs?

What year or time period?