How Tariffs Could Make Americans’ Hobbies More Expensive (2025)

Since October, Frank Vaughan has been fixing up a 1990 Catalina 18 sailboat at his home in Cedar Creek, Texas. By early this year, the boat was just about lake-ready. All it needed was some sails.

So in February, Mr. Vaughan, 66, ordered two new Dacron sails from a Chinese company. He got an estimate that each would cost $400. Then he got an update email, and another in the weeks that followed. Because of tariffs, the price would be about $1,200 each.

Then in early March, he asked a Canadian company about getting sails from it instead. But that company sourced from China, too, and the sails would cost 50 percent more than he had hoped to pay. An American company quoted him closer to $800 each — its sailcloths are from China, too — and there was a waiting period of six to eight months.

Finally, at the end of last month, he found a set of used sails for $236 each. “They will do for a while,” Mr. Vaughan said, though the sails weren’t as crisp and shiny as new ones. He bought his boat for a couple of thousand dollars. “I’m not willing to spend multiples of that just for sails for it,” he said, describing the whole situation as “very frustrating.”

Mr. Vaughan, who is retired after working as a pilot and in human resources, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on his hobby since he began sailing in the 1980s. Still, now that he is living on a fixed income, if materials keep going up like this, he may give up the sport. “It would be a terrible loss,” he said, imagining how hard it would be “looking at the water, wishing I was on the water.”

Tariffs will touch almost every aspect of American life. This month, President Trump announced a blanket 10 percent tariff on most imported goods, which, though less extreme than his earlier plans, will probably cause price spikes. In particular, tariffs on China — which President Trump says will be 145 percent — could meaningfully raise prices on a wide range of goods for American consumers. That includes goods beloved by collectors and hobbyists.