Instead of rolling down the fairway after a striped drive, golf carts have swerved into the middle of America’s trade tensions with China.
With Chinese-based companies importing golf carts that some believe are cheaply made and undervalued, domestic United States brands have faced increasingly difficult paths toward fairly competing. While U.S.-based Club Car and E-Z-GO’s cheapest listed golf carts online are $9,475 and $8,374, respectively, Ali Express, an online retail service based in China, offers golf carts that can be found for under $1,000.
That disadvantage, however, could be erased with newly announced tariffs by the International Trade Commission, with Chinese golf cart companies facing tariffs that range from 31 percent to 679 percent.
The regular golfer, of course, doesn’t pay the cost for a golf cart each time they play a round. Instead, they’re typically charged a cart fee and the required greens fee to play—but both could see increases if clubs have to pay more than they’re accustomed to for golf carts.
Off the course, Georgia Rebublican Congressman Rick Allen—whose district includes Augusta and is home to Club Car and E‑Z‑GO—sees this as a broader victory in America’s effort to reduce dependence on Chinese goods.
“All I can do is look historically at what the Chinese have done,” Allen said, “and what they do is they go in, the government dumps steel or whatever in this country, golf carts, you name it. They put the competition out of business. And then you’re solely dependent on the Chinese for the problem.”
Once Chinese-imported golf carts began arriving in the U.S., Allen said they grabbed market share at an alarming rate, threatening the viability of domestic manufacturers. This prompted him to send a letter to the Office of the United States Trade Representative on June 28, 2024, his first action toward trying to protect Club Car and E-Z-Go, who held a combined 37-percent share of the golf cart industry in 2024, according to Global Market Insights. China, meantime, accounted for 99 percent of the $703 million worth of fully assembled golf cart imports to the U.S. in 2024, according to ImportGenius.
More than a year later, the International Trade Commission ruled that domestic U.S. producers have been materially injured by unfairly traded imports of Chinese Low Speed Personal Transportation Vehicles (LSPTVs), which include golf carts, personal transporation and light utility vehicles. As a result, antidumping duties—a tariff imposed on foreign imports believed to be priced below fair market value—will be imposed at rates ranging from 119 percent to 478 percent. Countervailing duties—tariffs to counteract foreign government subsidies to companies—will be levied at rates between 31 percent and 679 percent.
If U.S.-based manufacturers were forced out of business, Allen said he anticipated China raising prices. In Allen’s opinion, this would mark national security and product availability issues because it poses a threat that golf carts would be added to the list of products—he noted steel and Barbie dolls—that suggest America is at China’s mercy.
Some American economists, however, see the golf cart issue as a microcosm of a wider trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
Gene Grossman, an International Economics professor at Princeton, said dependence on China for strategically important items—such as semiconductor chips and rare Earth minerals—could be costly and harmful for American security. As for golf carts?
“If we depended on China for golf carts, whatever that means, then we’ll buy our golf carts from China,” Grossman said. “What’s the big deal?”
Kenneth Rogoff, an Economics professor at Harvard, shared a similar sentiment, adding that the U.S. has more pressing national security issues with China, problems with China spying and disagreements over how to handle hot spots like Russia and Ukraine.
Although economists understood Allen’s concern given the two major golf cart companies in his district, they said it’s not an issue the U.S. should focus on as a national security issue.
In regard to Allen’s concerns about raising prices should it become the dominant golf cart distributor, Grossman countered there are almost no cases in history where that’s similarly happened. Additionally, he added there’d still be significant competition within China to prohibit that from happening.
However, Rogoff believes there’s an underlying issue at play.
“It’s more like there were Americans who spent their life designing golf carts and have a very successful business in it,” Rogoff said. “And you know, should we let the Chinese wipe them out when China has a lot of barriers to entry for the United States and their trade there? I think it’s a very real issue.”
It’s a point Allen also leaned into, saying the golf community will lose storied brands that play a pivotal role in American golfing tradition and that the country needs to keep an “America First” mindset.
While maybe not holding the same weight as semiconductor chips or rare minerals. golf carts unexpectedly play a role in the U.S. and China’s trade tensions.
As for how much of a factor it plays? Well, that depends on who you ask.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
