Guest editorial by Pat Cunnane: It’s time to break the cycle of uncertainty

By Pat Cunnane

Business thrives on certainty. It is a prerequisite for investment, hiring, and long-term planning. Yet for the American bicycle industry, the last three decades — and especially the last five years — have been characterized by anything but. Over time this instability has led to a total collapse of domestic bicycle manufacturing. That is why Congress should pass the U.S. Bicycle Production and Assembly Act (H.R. 3904) to halt this cycle of uncertainty and weakness and forge a strategy to bring bicycle assembly and manufacturing back to the United States.

The U.S. Bicycle Production and Assembly Act (H.R. 3904) is bipartisan legislation designed to eliminate the primary cost barrier that prevents large-scale bicycle assembly and manufacturing from returning to the United States. Its central mechanism is the creation of a temporary, 10-year duty-free window for specific imported bicycle components, provided those components are used exclusively for final assembly or manufacturing of complete bicycles (including e-bikes) in the U.S.

Today’s statistics tell the sobering story: more than 97% of all bicycles sold in the United States are imported. The existing Section 301 Tariffs (imposed during the first Trump administration and extended by the Biden administration) and the new reciprocal tariffs imposed this year — which are subject to a Supreme Court ruling — alone will not bring production back to the U.S. But passing H.R. 3904 can help us get where we need to be.

The Cost of Uncertainty

The current trade environment, marked by the sudden imposition of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariff, the ongoing application of Section 301 tariffs, and the threat of Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, forces companies into constant, reactive tactical supply chain maneuvers rather than strategic domestic investment. Instability does not encourage reshoring; it simply leaves businesses guessing where the next bicycle or component will be built, resulting in inventory chaos and supply chain whiplash.

The contrast with the past is stark. In 1992, according to Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, almost 9 million bicycles were manufactured in America. By 1999, when Huffy closed its last U.S. manufacturing facility, the era of U.S. bicycle production was dead, with fewer than 200,000 bikes being made domestically.

In the mid-1990s, the U.S. bicycle industry — led by major manufacturers like Huffy, Murray, and Roadmaster — attempted to fight back against unfair Chinese competition by lobbying the government to impose anti-dumping duties on China-made bicycles. When those efforts failed, the economic foundation of these legacy American brands, and the supply chain that supported them crumbled. At the same time, most other countries — including the EU, Mexico, and Canada — imposed anti-dumping duties on China, while the U.S. did not. 

In 1996, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) issued its final ruling on the anti-dumping case finding that imports of low-cost, mass-market bicycles from China did not pose a “material threat” to the three major U.S. bicycle manufacturers: Huffy, Murray and Roadmaster. This decision not to protect the U.S. bicycle manufacturing base led directly to its demise.

During the first Trump administration, Section 301 tariffs were imposed on most bicycles and bicycle parts from China. At that time, 95% of all bikes sold in the U.S. were made in China. It is important to note that these tariffs have had a significant cost to consumers. Comparing prices from 2016 to November 2025 illustrates the result:

With bicycles, we know who pays the tariffs: Consumers. Consumers are paying as much as 50% more for the same bicycle at Walmart in 2025 as they paid in 2016, before Section 301 and other tariffs were imposed — an increase significantly higher than general inflation for the same period of 26%.

We Need an Incentive — Not a Penalty — to Act

The cycle of dependency on imported bicycles continued through the first Trump administration’s trade actions (then continued by the Biden Administration), which imposed 25% Section 301 tariffs on Chinese-manufactured bicycles and many parts. While this theoretically created an incentive for domestic production, that didn’t happen.

The industry instead devoted resources to lobbying for tariff exclusions and simultaneously began a mass relocation of manufacturing — not back to the U.S., but to other low-cost countries, such as Cambodia, Malaysia, India and Vietnam, to escape the China tariffs. This merely created new supply chains that are just as fragile and geographically distant as the ones they replaced. Tariff policy, in its current form, only moves manufacturing out of China; it does not bring it back to the U.S.

This failure of trade policy is directly hurting current U.S. bicycle businesses. Increased landed costs for bicycles and components due to the tariffs are dragging down bicycle sales across all sectors. As sales and profits decline in our industry, the direct result is that companies are not hiring, not investing, and in some cases, closing or filing for bankruptcy.

And this is happening now: when the use of bicycles in the United States is on the rise.

The consequence of this trade policy is grimly demonstrated by its structural flaw: the system actively punishes American companies seeking to reshore production. Any domestic operation committed to U.S. assembly – such as those supported by the 2013 Walmart "U.S. Manufacturing Initiative’ – faces an insurmountable barrier because of the costs imposed by the government on the very inputs needed to make bicycles here.

This illustrates the central economic paradox: It is drastically less expensive to import a fully assembled bicycle — constructed with the exact same Chinese-made components (so long as the frame is not made in China) — from a third-party country like Vietnam, Malaysia, or Cambodia (where the duty is 11% before reciprocal tariffs) than it is to import the necessary parts from the established China supply base (subject to the combined Section 301, reciprocal, and fentanyl tariffs) for final assembly in the U.S. The U.S. government is inadvertently penalizing domestic assembly operations.

One tragic outcome of this flawed structure was demonstrated when the Bicycle Corporation of America (BCA) established in 2014 stopped its U.S. assembly operations in 2025.

The Path Forward: Stability Through H.R. 3904

The path forward to revitalizing bicycle manufacturing requires the unified, long-term industrial strategy embodied in the U.S. Bicycle Production and Assembly Act, introduced in a bipartisan effort by Reps Vern Buchanan (R-FL) and Mike Thompson (D-CA) in June.

The bill is attracting co-sponsors from both parties who recognize this bill will both protect existing businesses in their districts and allow them to grow and add more jobs. One example of this is true for Worksman Cycle, when visiting their factory in Conway, S.C., their congressman agreed to support HR 3904. He understands the negative impacts of the current tariffs on Worksman Cycles' efforts to maintain its current business and to grow. Worksman is the oldest continuously operating bicycle manufacturer in the USA. Worksman is also a leading exporter of American-made bicycles. These tariffs are making their export business more difficult, because of the higher costs for parts not manufactured in the USA by anyone, they now must pay higher tariffs. These tariffs provide an advantage for their competitors manufacturing in other countries.

This legislation is a smart, targeted solution that addresses economic imbalances directly. It suspends tariffs, including Section 301 duties, and reciprocal tariffs, on imported bicycle components if those components are used specifically for final assembly in the United States.

This bill will also support U.S. parts manufacturers. According to Nicole Johnson at Boyd Cycling, HR 3904 “gives American manufacturers like us more local customers and the stability and cost structure needed to expand production, hire more U.S. workers, and strengthen the domestic cycling supply chain.” 

Crucially, the bill offers a 10-year period of stability. This is the durable, predictable framework that businesses need to commit major capital investments — the kind required for assembly automation, specialized facilities, and the resurrection of a domestic supply chain. The bill even sets clear, measurable goals: assembling 2 million bicycles annually in the U.S. within five years and a goal of 5 million within 10 years.

Overtime, the reshoring of critical parts used in the assembly of bicycles will return to the United States. Our market is large and can support a robust supply chain. We see this all around the world — when bicycle assembly moves from one country to another, the parts suppliers follow. We can simply look at the development of the supply chain in different regions of China — and new supply chains in Vietnam, Cambodia and India. 

A Blueprint for American Renewal

Passage of H.R. 3904 will also create a critical workforce dividend by meeting the need for employment among less-skilled workers in specific regions. The initial assembly jobs offer an accessible entry point to the industrial sector, serving as essential, on-the-job trade training grounds for the next generation of American manufacturing workers. These plants, located in communities hungry for industrial investment, will provide a foundational workforce for the next phase: the higher-skilled component manufacturing (frames, wheels, complex parts) that will follow the assembly operations back to the U.S. One can look to Europe, which protected its bicycle industry in the 1990s by imposing anti-dumping duties on China, Europe continues to produce most of the bicycles sold there domestically, supported by well-established component and frame suppliers.

The U.S. Bicycle Production and Assembly Act is more than just a bike bill. It is a model for bipartisan, stable trade policy that uses targeted, long-term certainty — rather than short-term punitive actions — to incentivize reshoring. By establishing this predictable framework, we can secure jobs, shorten supply chains, and reignite a proud piece of American industrial heritage. The time to change the cycle of uncertainty to one of collaboration, stability, and opportunity.

Patrick J. Cunnane is the founder of Stoker Strategies, a consulting business helping business leaders with their businesses. He has decades of experience as a CEO and has been active on trade issues for the past 35 years, including testifying to the USTR on the 301 Tariffs and de minimis.