Proposed Tariffs On Foreign-Manufactured Surfboards Would Protect Approximately Four Hundred US Shaping Jobs And Cost California Surfers An Estimated Forty Million Dollars
The Economic Argument For The Tariffs Is Weak Even By Protectionist Standards, But The Industry Lobby Continues To Push It At Both The Federal And State Levels
For Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
WASHINGTON, DC / SACRAMENTO – A coalition of US-based surfboard shapers and a regional manufacturing trade association has been, since late 2025, pushing for a targeted tariff regime on foreign-manufactured surfboards at both the federal and California state levels. The proposed tariff would add 18 per cent to imported board prices and would, per the coalition’s own economic modelling, protect approximately 400 US shaping jobs. The modelling does not, as a matter of methodology, include the consumer cost of the tariff, which the California Department of Finance estimates at approximately 40 million dollars per year imposed on California surfers, almost entirely on the lower and middle price tiers.
The Free-Trade Argument
The free-trade argument here is the standard one, and it is strong even relative to the usual protectionist case. The 400 jobs the tariff would protect are real and they are concentrated in a small number of communities, primarily in coastal California and the US North Shore. The 40 million dollars in consumer cost is distributed across approximately 1.2 million California surfers, many of whom are young and not particularly well-resourced. The net welfare impact is significantly negative, even under the coalition’s own assumptions about job preservation.
The Industry Position
The domestic shaping industry has, over the past twenty years, contracted substantially in response to lower-cost manufacturing in Taiwan, Thailand, and, more recently, Vietnam. The coalition’s argument is that the contraction threatens specific regional manufacturing ecosystems, which is true, and that the preservation of these ecosystems has value beyond the direct employment, which is debatable. The empirical evidence on cluster-preservation benefits is, per the standard industrial organisation literature, thin.
The California-Specific Proposal
The California-level proposal is the more unusual of the two. A California-specific state tax on out-of-state surfboards would, per its own drafters, skirt federal preemption under the dormant Commerce Clause only through careful structural design. The proposal is unlikely to survive judicial review. The federal proposal, while more conventionally structured, would likely require congressional action that is not, on current Washington whip counts, plausible.
The Libertarian Position
The libertarian position is clear, even at the cost of some specific local employment effects. Tariffs are taxes. Tariffs on consumer goods are regressive. Tariffs justified on industry-preservation grounds consistently underperform their projected protection effect while imposing consistently higher consumer costs. Cato has published extensively on comparable protectionist proposals in other categories.
What Should Follow
The proposal should be defeated at both the federal and state levels. The US shaping industry’s legitimate concerns should be addressed through targeted workforce transition support, not through the quiet taxation of every surfer in California.
Further: Mises. SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
