There could be more tariff problems for US-based 3D printer operators.
If you haven’t heard, there are extremely serious diplomatic issues in recent days regarding the US President’s threats to take over Greenland. That country is part of the EU, which has rallied to the defence of Greenland. The EU is now considering a number of punitive countermeasures should the situation escalate further.
One of the measures being considered is the “trade bazooka”, or more properly the “Anti-Coercion Instrument”. This is a measure that was enacted relatively recently in order to prevent non-EU countries from putting member states under unreasonable pressure. While originally intended for use against China and Russia, the EU is now considering using this measure against the US.
Specifically, the measure allows the EU to place all manner of techniques to restrict trade between countries and the EU, including entirely blocking trade. If fully enacted, US manufacturers would lose 450 million EU customers.
If things get that far, then the US administration would no doubt retaliate with even more tariffs on EU goods — which would probably include 3D printers.
The major player affected in that case would be Prusa Research, which is an EU-based manufacturer. The company does some assembly in the US using their PrintedSolid subsidiary, but the parts are really coming from the EU anyway.
The bottom line here is that if the diplomatic situation escalates, it could mean that Prusa 3D printers could become much more expensive to acquire in the US, much like has happened with Chinese 3D printers.
Could this actually happen? It seems to be a low probability, as the Greenland situation is utterly ridiculous and should never have happened. However, the probability is not zero. That has already caused at least a few US buyers to stock up on Prusa equipment before prices change.
Additional tariffs on EU 3D printers, if they occur, would be good news for domestic US 3D printer manufacturers. The problem is that there really aren’t very many, and they are not very big. The most notable is probably LulzBot, based in North Dakota. The question is, would the LulzBot machine features and pricing be able to substitute for both Prusa and the Chinese equipment?
