Direct link to Guardian Bicycle Company’s submission to the Dept of Commerce’s request for comments: https://downloads.regulations.gov/BIS-2025-0023-0686/attachment_1.pdf
Essentially, the CEO writes that American bicycle manufacturing has dwindled since the 1940s, with ancillary focus on lost capabilities for drawing wire, extruding tubing, and bending metal from sheets. And since 86% percent of bicycles are imported from China – he says; citation needed – the adoption of the proposed 50% tariffs in derivative steel and aluminum products would :
eliminate over 200,000,000 pounds of imported steel and 40,000,000 pounds of imported aluminum into the United States annually
And:
will promote fair competition, enhance domestic supply chain security, and support national security.
He also attempts the nebulous task of back-calculating the current tariff burden on imported bicycles, trying to justify even a 50% tariff increase would still be a small pittance, “insufficient to reshore production and sustain capacity and demand for bicycles made with American steel and aluminum”
Needless to say, the CEO’s letter is all over the place. And even if I believed every assertion as true, I’m left wondering what exactly is the position of the company. Do they want tariffs more than 50%?
But with that summary out of the way, this is how I see things: a bicycle company is seeking to intentionally increase the price of all bicycles in the USA market, for reasons of market protection for themselves, with full knowledge that – by their own assertion – over 80% of bicycle sales will be impacted. I don’t give any credit to their claim that the tariff would only add $13 to each bicycle, because the reality is that a rising (tax) tide lifts all ships, and when everyone has to increase prices to pass on the duty, that makes it easier to pad out the price for a nicer profit margin, with zero extra value to the buyer.
I am disgusted. And not only that, I only see short-term vision from this bicycle company, which would give me pause if I ever came across their products in real life. After all, a proper bicycle is not a consumer good but a durable mode of transportation. A bicycle should last decades. If this company’s advocated policy is a myopic view of how bicycles deliver value, then there’s no way I can see them actually producing a long-term, durable product. I wouldn’t buy such a thing.
In my world view, value is delivered either by being cheap but exactly as advertised, or being pricey but worthwhile because of its longevity. I personally prefer items from the latter, but I acknowledge that items from the former also deliver value because they’re more accessible. Here, this CEO wants to rob every American of cheap-value bikes and of long-term durable bikes.
I hope that everyone learns of Guardian Bicycles, for the terrible reasons they’ve decided to lay out in public comment.
Guardian Bikes. They’re opening a factory in Indiana.
