On Wednesday (April 9), Donald Trump might’ve certainly committed market manipulation when he paused his ridiculous tariff policies on most of the world (those penguins on the McDonald Islands must be relieved), but unfortunately, his tariffs on China remain a full go. And naturally, that would mean higher prices on lots of everyday products including sneakers.
While many sneakerheads dread the day that they see the price tag on highly anticipated sneakers jump a few dollars, it’s now an inevitability as China responded to Trump’s 104% tariff increase on Chinese imports with an 84% increase on American imported goods of their own, along with a promise of not backing down should Trump continue to raise the tariff bar.
Now that we’re officially in a trade war with our Chinese counterparts, many a sneaker head is wondering how much more they’ll have to come out of pocket to purchase a pair of kicks from their favorite sneaker brand. And the answer isn’t one we want to hear. In a segment on CNN yesterday (April 9), Matt Priest (President and CEO of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America) explained that a simple pair of sneakers that would retail for $150 will now shoot up to $230. Keep in mind, many popular Air Jordan and Nike silhouettes tend to cost anywhere from $190 to $220, so yeah, a general release pair of Jordans can easily be going into the $250+ range sometime soon.
That being said, if those sneakers were to be made in the USA, one pair of sneakers would be retailing for $300 – $400 as American labor is much more expensive than Chinese or Vietnamese labor; they get paid pennies on the dollar for a full day’s work for Christ’s sake.
“Luckily,” neither Nike nor Adidas or any other big sports brand is planning on opening a manufacturing facility for their products in America anytime soon (or ever actually) as it’s just not cost effective for them. Though Trump promises his tariffs will result in such scenarios for big businesses (he’s blatantly lying about that), industrial facilities and manufacturing jobs are shipped overseas to keep products “reasonably” priced for American consumers. Though it basically costs $10 to make a single pair of sneakers in China, companies will sell them in America for $100+, which is “affordable” and make their coin in the process.
What’s worse is the prospect that should Donald Trump and China come to some sort of agreement and dismiss their trade war and bring tariffs back down to where they were prior to this escalation, the higher prices of sneaker and other consumer goods may not come back down at all and remain in the $200+ range going forward. That’s just how the sneaker game goes.
Check out Matt Priest break down the sneaker science behind Trump’s idiotic tariffs below, and let us know your thoughts on the price increase in the comments section.
