Tariffs - If you're a premium cigar consumer, this is an evil word as every premium cigar is either imported or the tobacco used to make them is imported.
The following is from Cigar Aficionado -
The new tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on nearly every item shipped to the United States took the cigar industry by surprise. The executive order, signed on April 2, will result in higher prices on selling cigars and cigar accessories in the United States, and cigarmakers say those price increases will make their way to the end consumer. Unless the president changes his mind and eliminates the tariffs, cigar smokers very soon will be paying more for cigars, lighters and other cigar-related goods in retail stores and on websites.
President Trump’s move initiated a minimum 10 percent tariff on exports from just about every country, and cigars coming into the United States from the Dominican Republic and Honduras are now subject to that 10 percent tariff, which went into effect on Saturday. Several countries were assessed with even higher tariff rates, among them Nicaragua, which makes more cigars by hand than any other country on earth. Cigars from Nicaragua were set to be subject to a tariff of 18 percent. (Early reports had this figure at 19 percent.) They went into effect on April 9, but around midday on April 9 President Trump changed course, announcing a 90-day “pause” on most of these extreme tariffs, moving such countries as Nicaragua to the same level, 10 percent, as the Dominican Republic and Honduras. It's likely there will be more changes before the end of the 90 days.
Tariffs are taxes, levied by countries on imported goods. Despite political spin, they are not paid by the country or company that makes (or exports) the product, but by the company that receives or imports the item. And the burden is almost always passed on to the consumer, which means higher tariffs directly lead to higher prices on imported goods.
“There is no doubt that the new tariffs will have a major effect on the premium cigar industry,” says Drew Newman of J.C. Newman Cigar Co. “If these tariffs remain in place, we expect that the tariffs will be passed on to consumers, causing cigar prices in the long term to rise by the amount of the tariffs.”