In August 2026, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump declared brass instruments a national security threat and imposed tariffs on them.
The U.S. Department of Commerce included brass instruments on a list of products that faced proposed tariffs for alleged national security reasons.
The government agency did not say brass instruments themselves posed a threat. Rather, the issue was the copper-containing metal alloy these instruments are made of. The cited for this inclusion was Presidential Proclamation 10962, of July 30, 2025, in which Trump said copper “in all forms” (including copper alloys) “is being imported into the United States in such quantities and under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security of the United States.”
In August 2026, a rumor spread that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had declared brass musical instruments to be a national security threat to justify imposing tariffs on them.
This week, the Trump administration declared tubas, trombones, trumpets, and French horns a national security threat.
Brass instruments could soon face a 25% tariff on imports, parts, and accessories, as part of a wider push to expand tariffs on aluminium, steel, and copper. The six-page proposal, published by the Department of Commerce, uses the words “national security” nine times.
(Facebook page Classic FM)
Variants of the claim also spread on Reddit and on X.
The social media posts echoed reports in blog posts and news outlets, including the website of Classic FM, a radio station dedicated to classical music, and HuffPost.
Meanwhile, several Snopes readers emailed and searched the website seeking to verify the information.
However, it was not the instruments themselves the government department appeared to focus on, but the material from which they are made — a copper alloy. The request for comment cited Presidential Proclamation 10962 of July 30, 2025, in which Trump said copper “in all forms” — including its alloys — “is being imported into the United States in such quantities and under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security of the United States.”
As a result, we’ve rated the claim mostly true.
“Reshoring steel, aluminum, and copper production back to the United States is a national security prerogative, given that America cannot be reliant on foreign countries for metals that are critical for military hardware, key infrastructure, technology, etc,” a spokesperson for the White House told Snopes in an email. “If we only tariff the raw slabs of these metals being dumped onto the U.S. market, U.S. producers would still get undermined by foreign metal production flowing instead into the foreign production of derivative products like instruments that then get dumped onto our market instead.”
We have also reached out to the Commerce Department to ask if it could made a direct link between brass instruments and national security concerns. We will update this report should we receive a response.
Background of the proposed tariffs
The request for comment featured a list of several products on which the Commerce Department proposed to impose tariffs. Besides “brass-wind musical instruments and parts and accessories thereof,” the list included fire extinguishers and oxygen tanks.
These imported products needed to be subjected to tariffs because they contained aluminum, steel or copper, the Commerce Department said. All three metals were the target of three separate presidential proclamations in which Trump deemed their importation excessive and a national security threat.
Proclamation 10962 specifically concerned copper “in all forms,” including alloys. The material for brass instruments is an alloy of copper and zinc, which presumably justified their inclusion in the list of imported products worthy of tariffs. The Commerce Department’s request for comment appeared to argue that imposing such tariffs helped protect domestic industries:
As explained in the reports submitted by the Secretary to the President and cited in Proclamations 9704, 9705, and 10962, steel, aluminum, and copper are being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security of the United States. Therefore the President ordered adjustments of imports to protect U.S. national security interests by identifying derivative products on which tariffs must be imposed in order to protect the U.S. defense industrial base. The U.S. defense industrial base is critical to protecting U.S. national security interests.
The request for comment also said the Commerce Department would seek to impose 25% tariffs on these products, except for those deemed to be “agricultural equipment,” which would be subject to 15% duties.
By law, the Commerce Department cannot impose this rule before a period ending on Aug. 27, during which it will receive comments on its proposal.
For further reading, Snopes has covered Trump’s tariffs extensively, including the claim that Trump had imposed a 2,000% tariff on Belgian chocolate.
