I paid my first Trump tariff, it sucked

As I have written before, I’m not that happy with my Apple Watch Ultra. So I waited for a new Forerunner to be announced, and Garmin announced their latest Forerunner watch. And since it was also around my birthday (and not having any other wishes), I splurged on it. I used to have the Forerunner 945, and I was generally delighted with it, so I wanted to go back¹.

The only thing that was a bit of a sore point was the price. The list price jumped by 150 Swiss francs. I don’t mind paying for quality products, and my last Garmin is still in use today by a friend, so that is largely a good omen. But the price increase still stung, mostly because it’s not only because of an improved product, but also because of geopolitics. And this majorly sucks.

New features

Like clockwork, Garmin releases new features. I think for the Forerunner 970, the major feature (at least looking at it from a cost standpoint) is the new light. Also including higher cost for almost everything. I expected an increase of about 50 Swiss francs, but of course, it was much more.

And the reason for this is obvious: Trump’s misguided tariffs. And I also blame Garmin a bit for passing them on to all the consumers.

Under assumptions that Garmin produces in Taiwan and has a production cost of around 25% of the manufacturing cost, about CHF 50 of this is just tariffs. But of course, the tariffs for Taiwan are currently on pause. But still, if I were Garmin, I would not risk this at all. I would raise the price now (as they have done) and then be ready for any tariffs. After all, if you raise the prices afterwards, Trump is going to go after them (and for some reason, he still has the support from his base).

However, Garmin could have applied the tariffs just to the sales in the US. I’m not sure about their delivery structures, but they should be able to ship to Europe directly, after all their legal headquarters are in Switzerland. So I do feel a bit salty about paying for the stupid tariffs in the US, by Garmin raising the prices globally.