Japanese machine tool builders booked JPY 40.65 billion of North American orders in June 2026, 44% more than in June 2025, and over the first half of the year the United States alone gave them the dollar equivalent of $1.29 billion against the $3.44 billion that US buyers placed for all metalworking machinery: 37 cents of every dollar of the strongest half-year since USMTO began in 1998 (JMTBA, June 2026 release; American Machinist, July 2026). That is before the machines Mazak builds in Kentucky and DMG Mori builds in California, which appear in neither series. The yen at 158 does most of the work, the tariff schedule none of it, and because the Open Factory Bid-Tab Price Book still carries zero machine-tool awards, every dollar figure below is public data, converted, with the arithmetic shown. This piece covers the JMTBA and builder numbers, the import data that has not caught up, the 35% currency discount that nobody passed on, the one 15% rate that now applies to Japan, Taiwan and Germany alike, a Taiwanese 5-axis landed in Ohio, and, behind the wall, which builders assemble in the US and where the room sits in a 2026 quote.
Source: JMTBA, monthly machine tool orders releases, February 2025 to September 2026
North America ran JPY 24.2 billion in January 2025, JPY 41.5 billion in December, and between JPY 34.6 billion and JPY 43.1 billion in every month of 2026 through July; Asia went from JPY 44.8 billion to JPY 81.4 billion over the same span, and Europe from JPY 13.2 billion to JPY 23.1 billion. The JPY 81.42 billion, +174.4% figure that circulated for North America in June is JMTBA’s Asia line (JMTBA, August 5, 2026); a trade-press table swapped the rows (Seisanzai Japan, July 30, 2026) against its own text, and The $306k Machine carries the correction. North America was JPY 40.65 billion, up 44.0%; the United States alone was JPY 36.0 billion, up 44.4%.
Thirty-Seven Cents of Every Dollar
Japanese builders’ US orders were JPY 203.7 billion in the first half of 2026, up 36.1% on the first half of 2025, and USMTO’s US total was up 36.0% over the same six months. The US figure is JMTBA’s destination table (North America less Canada and Mexico, JPY 149.6 billion a year earlier), transcribed in The $306k Machine; the whole continent was JPY 232.5 billion, up 36.5%. The two series differ: JMTBA counts builders’ bookings at the builder’s price, USMTO counts US distributors’ bookings at the distributor’s price. Converted month by month at the FRED EXJPUS average, Japanese builders’ US orders were $1.01 billion in the first half of 2025 and $1.29 billion in the first half of 2026, a 27.3% rise in dollars against USMTO’s 36.0%, because the yen fell from 148.4 to 158.1 between the two halves. The Japanese share held near 37 cents on the dollar; what changed is the price, which is the subject of the third chart. The record half-year itself, $3.44 billion on 11,243 machines and a $306,000 average order, is unpacked in The $306k Machine.
The listed builders confirm the shape. DMG Mori booked JPY 335.2 billion of orders in January to June 2026, up 34.8% and a record for a half, with the April to June quarter at JPY 179.8 billion, up 40.5%; its average machine order was JPY 81.8 million, about $517,000 at its own 158.2 first-half rate, and its machine backlog reached JPY 303.0 billion at the end of June against JPY 240.0 billion in December (DMG Mori IR conference, August 4, 2026). It names “global key accounts in Europe and North America” as the buyers, and its EBIT bridge credits gross margin to “lower discounts for MX products.” Okuma’s Americas orders were JPY 25.7 billion in April to June 2026, up 102.2% on the year and 34% of a group total of JPY 75.3 billion that was itself a first-quarter record; its Americas orders for the year to March 2026 were JPY 78.7 billion, up 25.5%, and its backlog stood at a record JPY 124.8 billion at the end of June (Okuma Q1 FY2026 results, August 5, 2026; FY2025 results, May 28, 2026). Yamazaki Mazak is private and publishes nothing, which is why it sits where it does on the OEM Disclosure Scorecard; the four builders’ disclosures are in data/builder-disclosures.csv.
The Import Data Has Not Caught Up
US imports of machine tools were $11.5 billion in 2025 and Japan supplied $1.88 billion of them, 16% of the total, down from 25% in 2015 and behind Germany for the second year. Customs data run a year behind orders and cannot see a machine assembled in Florence, Kentucky, so they miss the 2026 wave, but they show what a decade of yen did.
Source: UN Comtrade (US-reported imports, 2015 to 2025) via Open Factory Bid-Tab Price Book, machine-tool worked example
Japan shipped $2.32 billion of HS 8456 to 8466 machinery to the US in 2015 and $1.88 billion in 2025; at the average exchange rate of each year that is JPY 281 billion both times, to the billion, so a decade of “decline” in the dollar series is a flat line in yen (UN Comtrade, US-reported imports, CSV in data/us-machine-tool-imports-by-country.csv). Germany went from $1.51 billion to $2.22 billion, Taiwan from $0.86 billion to $1.13 billion, South Korea from $0.44 billion to $0.78 billion, and China from $1.20 billion to $0.73 billion. On machining centers alone (HS 8457) Japan and Germany tied in 2025 at $505 million and $504 million, Korea took $152 million and Taiwan $90 million; on lathes (HS 8458) Japan led with $451 million to Korea’s $264 million (data/us-imports-8457-8458-8459-by-country-2025.csv). The gap between JMTBA’s JPY 313 billion of 2025 US orders, about $2.09 billion, and $1.88 billion of 2025 imports is Kentucky, Davis, and a backlog that DMG Mori says is now 6.6 months of sales.
A 35% Discount Nobody Passed On
A machine priced at JPY 40 million cost $385,000 in January 2021 and $252,000 in August 2026, a 35% cut delivered entirely by the exchange rate. The yen was 103.8 to the dollar in January 2021, 145 by October 2022, 158.8 in August 2026, and 156.1 on September 4, 2026 (FRED EXJPUS and DEXJPUS).
Source: FRED EXJPUS via Open Factory Bid-Tab Price Book, machine-tool worked example
Read the line: $385,000 at the January 2021 peak, $307,000 in January 2023, and $246,000 to $256,000 in every month of 2026. Nothing like that appears on a US price list. The BLS producer price index for machine tool manufacturing rose 22.5% between January 2021 and July 2026, from 116.4 to 142.6 (BLS PCU333517333517 via FRED), and the builders’ own planning rates tell you where the currency went: DMG Mori budgets JPY 150 per dollar for the second half of 2026 against an actual 158.2 in the first half, and Okuma moved its assumption from 150 in May to 159 in August (Okuma, August 5, 2026). Okuma’s president writes of “establishing high value-added prices in each market” and DMG Mori of lower discounts; neither has cut a US list price. The yen’s 35% became the builders’ margin, the distributors’ margin, and the discount that was not offered, in a proportion nobody publishes, which is the gap the Equipment Price Benchmark exists to close once it has five contributors and eight quotes per cell.
One Rate for Three Origins
A machining center from Japan, Taiwan or Germany pays 15% at the border today, all-in, and the same machine pays 29.2% from January 1, 2028; the brand’s passport stopped mattering on April 9, 2026. Taiwan was published at 32% in the April 2, 2025 reciprocal order, Japan at 24% and the EU at 20% (EO 14257, Annex I); the August 7, 2025 revision cut Taiwan to 20% and Japan to 15% (EO 14326, Annex I), and the Japan agreement made Japan’s 15% an all-in cap that absorbed the 4.2% column 1 rate (EO 14345). On August 18, 2025 Commerce added HTS 8457.10.00 to the Section 232 derivative list, so the steel and aluminum content of every imported machining center paid 50% while the rest paid the country rate (BIS inclusions notice, 90 FR 40326). The Supreme Court ended the reciprocal tariffs on February 20, 2026, a 10% Section 122 surcharge filled the gap, and Proclamation 11021 moved machining centers into Annex III at 15% all-in on April 9, exempt from Section 122 and from the July 24 Section 301 tier (Tariffs, September 2026).
Source: Open Factory Tariff Exposure Calculator (HTS 2026 Rev. 18; 91 FR 18201; 91 FR 34085; 91 FR 47318; as of September 2026)
Three machining-center bars at 15.0%, which is 4.2% column 1 plus 10.8% of Section 232; three lathe bars at 12.5% from Japan and 10.0% from Taiwan or Germany, because HTS 8458 carries no metal tariff and the July 2026 caps do the work; and one bar at 29.2% for any of the three origins on January 1, 2028, when the Annex III tier lapses and the machine falls to column 1 plus 25% (data/tariff-stack-machining-center.csv). A Mazak from Florence, a DMG Mori NHX from Davis or a Haas from Oxnard pays none of it, which is why the Tariff Exposure Calculator asks for the plant before it asks for the brand. The Taiwan number matters for one more reason: a Hurco is a Taiwanese machine. Hurco’s 10-K says “the vast majority of our products are shipped from our manufacturing facility in Taiwan from the Port of Taichung,” a 370,100 square foot plant, with Indianapolis doing final assembly on certain VMX models (Hurco 10-K, FYE October 31, 2025).
A Taiwanese 5-Axis Landed in Ohio
A Hurco VM10Ui class 5-axis at MachineToolIndex’s $120,000 to $160,000 estimate lands in a Dayton shop at about $180,000 before tooling, and $21,000 of that is duty only if the entered value equals your price, which it does not. The line items and their sources are in the table; the machine price is an estimate for the class, not a Hurco quote, and the two lines marked (A) are our assumptions.
| Line | $ | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Machine, Hurco VM10Ui class 5-axis, new, configured | 140,000 | MachineToolIndex estimate, $120,000 to $160,000, not a quote |
| Duty, HTS 8457.10.00, Taiwan, 15% all-in on entered value | 21,000 | Upper bound; assumes entered value equals dealer price |
| Ocean freight, one 40 ft container, Shanghai to Los Angeles as proxy | 7,185 | Drewry WCI, September 3, 2026; oversize flat-rack costs more (A) |
| Inland freight to Ohio, rigging, install, training | 12,000 | (A) $8,000 to $16,000 |
| Ohio sales tax | 0 | Exempt, manufacturing machinery, ORC 5739.02(B)(42)(g) |
| Landed in Ohio, before tooling and workholding | 180,185 | Sum; $165,000 to $205,000 across the ranges |
| Comparison: Haas UMC-500, list, built in Oxnard, duty 0 | 156,995 | Haas list via MachineToolIndex; options, freight, install extra |
Source: Open Factory compilation from the documents cited in each row, September 2026. CSV: data/landed-cost-taiwan-5axis-ohio.csv
The duty line is the one to argue about. CBP assesses the 15% on the entered value, which for a machine imported by a builder’s US subsidiary is the intercompany price, not the price the distributor quotes you, so a 15% “tariff surcharge” on your invoice recovers more duty than was paid. Drewry’s $7,185 is a Shanghai to Los Angeles box; a trunnion machine often ships on a flat rack at a premium we cannot source, so the freight line is a floor. Set against a UMC-500 at $156,995 list with no duty, the Taiwanese machine’s landed premium is $23,000 on our midpoint, and its whole case has to be made on the 12,000 rpm spindle and the control, which is a comparison Quote Check can run once both quotes are on the same Incoterm.
What to Do Monday
Write three fields onto every machine-tool RFQ this quarter: the ten-digit HTS line, the plant of origin, and the entered value the importer will declare, and refuse a quote that folds them into one “tariffs included” line. The RFQ template for capital equipment already carries the fields; the Tariff Exposure Calculator returns the rate and the citation for the pair, and the difference between 15% on the entered value and 15% on your invoice is the first number you negotiate. Second, ask for the US-built equivalent by name: a DMG Mori NHX horizontal from Davis instead of the same model from Iga, a Kentucky-built Mazak instead of an Inabe-built one, and get the plant written on the order acknowledgment, because the Annex III clock runs to December 31, 2027 and a 40-week delivery ordered in March 2027 lands on the wrong side of it. Third, price the yen: the builder is planning at 150 and buying at 158, and a quote in dollars that has not moved since 2024 has 5 to 8 points of currency in it before the first discount. Fourth, put the price you actually paid into the Equipment Price Benchmark; Haas is the only public list in the market. Behind the paywall: the five builders’ US plants, including the one that can build 100 machines a month in California with zero duty, the imported parts that still pay the stack on a US-assembled machine, and the five lines in a 2026 quote where the room sits, mapped to the Bid-Tab Price Book’s machine-tool worked example.