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Trump tariffs hit DJI pricing, Mavic Mini $50 less expensive in Canada

Want to get the best deal possible on a Mavic Mini? Order it from inside Canada. You’ll pay $349 US instead of $399 – a price that is higher due to US tariffs imposed against the Chinese-made product.

The people who contribute to DroneDJ are in the US, Australia, and Canada. Because of that, we’re hitting the DJI store from different IP addresses in different nations. Normally, that makes zero difference when we’re looking at features and prices. But this week, while writing up a story about the Mavic Mini, we hopped onto the DJI store from Toronto. We wrote the story, quoted the price, and moved on to the next story. But it wasn’t long before sharp-eyed readers were noticing that we had quoted the Mavic Mini at $50 less than the retail price people in the US had been seeing on the store. We kind of shook our heads and did a double-take. Sure enough, the prices were different.

And that made us really wonder what’s going on. Was it an error?

Nope.

Tariffs

It’s been no secret that the US government isn’t too fond of China these days. We’ve certainly heard that from US President Donald Trump, who continues to refer to COVID-19 as “the China virus.” And we’ve certainly seen this in the drone industry, where there is an increasing emphasis on Made in the US technology. Some speculate it’s more about trade protectionism than anything else, though there have been controversial references to concerns over data privacy and other security issues.

For the most part, this dispute has been at the governmental and corporate levels. But policy issues like this always have a trickle-down effect. And this one trickles right down to the pocketbooks of consumers.

Canada pricing

And it’s particularly evident when it comes to the Mavic Mini. Here’s the display when you access the DJI store from inside Canada.

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US Pricing

Not so fast. If you are ordering from inside the US, this is what you’ll see:

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Why?

That’s the $50 question.

We reached out to a source with knowledge of the matter. The person said the price difference was directly due to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. No word on why it appears to apply solely to the Mini; we’re checking.

We doubt that a VPN will offer you a way around this unless you’re shipping to Canada. But you can always try. For once, us Canadians can get something cheaper than in the US.

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