While Donald Trump’s global trade war is currently if not entirely on hold, after the US president last week triggered a 90-day pause on his threatened higher tariff rates for most countries, American brand Specialized is already preparing for the potential impact of the new import taxes – by adding a 10 per cent additional surcharge on its bikes for US customers.
According to a report by Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, California-based Specialized told US retailers last week that it will list a 10 per cent additional tariff surcharge on a separate line item on business-to-business invoices for the brand’s new Turbo Levo 4 e-mountain bikes, ordered after 1 May.
The Turbo Levo 4 was released last week, with prices starting at £6,800. In email sent to retailers in the United States by Specialized’s North America regional leader Jesse Porter on 9 April, the company said that online checkout for the bike will list this new surcharge from the beginning of May.
2025 specialized levo 4 hero (credit: road.cc)Porter pointed out in the email that retailers should pass this surcharge “directly to the consumer”.
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The email also noted that Specialized, which bases most of its manufacturing in Taiwan – which Trump announced on 2 April would face an additional 32 per cent tariff on imports – will increase the cost and retail pricing across its range of bikes and equipment in the United States from 1 May.
After confirming its final pricing structure in light of the tariffs, the company said it will share these details with retailers, informing them that they should list the tariff charge separately.
By doing so, Specialized says, “there’s no need to update signage or marketing assets at launch” and “riders clearly see what they’re paying for – not at a hidden cost”.
The brand also said that the sperate tariff surcharge means “we maintain flexibility to update or remove the charge if government tariffs change”.
road.cc has contacted Specialized for comment.
Of course, the Californian brand isn’t the only bike manufacturer attempting to adapt to the shifting sands of Donald Trump’s economic policy.
Last week, the US government announced that the heavy tariffs imposed earlier this month on a range of countries, including most of the big bike manufacturing nations in Asia, such as Taiwan, Cambodia, and Vietnam, will be suspended for 90 days, with a “lowered reciprocal” rate of 10 per cent on all products entering the United States authorised instead.
But despite this, possibly brief, reprieve, one of the biggest suppliers of bicycles to the United States, Giant, said that the US president’s attempt at reordering global economics is “absolutely not positive” for the cycling industry.
The Taiwanese brand, which last month revealed that its profits had been slashed by 62 per cent in 2024 as heavy discounting and inventory challenges hit the company, has also warned that if the high tariffs previously threatened by the Trump administration return, Giant “will inevitably be forced to reflect the cost”.
While the United States’ so-called reciprocal tariffs on most of cycling’s Asian manufacturing hubs returned last week to 10 per cent, at the same time Trump announced that tariffs on goods from China – which supplies 87 per cent of bikes in the US – would be increased to 125 per cent, after the US president accused Beijing of a “lack of respect” for imposing a retaliatory 84 per cent tariff on US imports.
That decision prompted one major US bike manufacturer to warn, as companies and consumers struggle to ascertain the extent to which the industry will be hit by the current economic turmoil, that the price of bikes in the United States could rise by as much as 50 per cent thanks to the tariffs.
Arnold Kamler, the chair of New Jersey-based Kent International, revealed that his company has already increased their prices by 12 per cent this year, thanks to Trump’s initial 20 per cent tariff on China.
Meanwhile, industry lobby group PeopleForBikes’ Matt Moore also warned that higher import costs as a result of the tariffs could force many companies either into insolvency or into mergers with rivals.
“The mood in the industry is fairly grim because we are facing a potentially existential threat,” Moore said.
“Companies with better access to capital and operational advantages will raise prices to cover costs and preserve margins. Companies that cannot do that may succumb to this new trade environment.”
PeopleForBikes says it is currently lobbying for relief on duty for frame and component imports, as well as low-interest loans for manufacturers to build factories in the US.
It joins the National Bicycle Dealers Association, a group representing cycling retailers, which is exploring the possibility of lobbying politicians for the first time in decades, with the aim of convincing them to oppose the tariffs or at least explore some alternatives for the industry.
Jay Townley, a founding partner of the cycling industry consulting firm Human Powered Solutions, conceded last week that “we’re out of business because nobody can afford to bring in a bicycle product at 100 per cent or more in tariffs”.
“We do not know how to make a bike,” Townley said. “When it comes to manufacturing, all of that knowledge resides in Taiwan, China, Vietnam. It isn’t here.”