1. Removal of de minimis / low-value duty free exemption. Plenty of countries have very low thresholds to start collecting sales tax on imports. A moot point as a lot of platforms (Etsy/Amazon/Ebay/Aliexpress/Temu) charge the destination's US/EU/Aus sales taxes already. Usually a higher threshold to start collecting duty. Duty is much more cognitively difficult to assess. Historically, sales taxes were more than duty for most items anyway. US is now another exception here.
2. US not accepting "duty-unpaid" postal shipments. This is VERY unusual.
As of today, I can walk into the post office and send a parcel to any country in the world. The destination customs will figure out if/what duty/taxes are owed and collect it from the recipient. I don't need to know, nor care, what the rates are in Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Colombia or San Marino. The buyer should know and can complain to their gov if it's unreasonable/incorrect.
Next month, USA will be the sole exception to that. Air freight to USA is going to get a lot cheaper if anyone is looking.
> US not accepting "duty-unpaid" postal shipments. This is VERY unusual.
To maintain the illusion that the sender pays for tariffs?
Keep receipts and customs declarations on everything imported. There's a lawsuit underway and it may well be decided that Trump doesn't have the authority to levy tariffs at all under the Emergency Economic Powers Act. In that case, importers will be due a refund.[1]
The Constitution says that Congress sets tariffs and the Emergency Economic Powers Act doesn't mention tariffs. As usual, Trump's strategy is to stall, probably until 2026 when this is expected to reach the Supreme Court. Congress could enact Trump's tariff schedule to resolve this, but that would lock it into law.
> To maintain the illusion that the sender pays for tariffs?
I think it’s both that and the overwhelming reluctance to tell (and perhaps hire more) people carrying guns in an already safe and secure area to do (paper)work.
Similar issue in Canada where border officers allegedly do enforcement and provide services but want to focus on the “bad guy” enforcement part. Helping people out or sending bills to grandma wasn’t what they were promised when they signed up.
For at least the near term, parcels won't be shipped into the US. Once things stabilize, they'll figure out who'll pay the tariffs stemming from suspending de minimus. But it's going to affect small companies outside the US and the cost of goods entering from outside.
That's the intent, but it's going to result in some lean months or years until the payola is delivered or the factories are (re)built. And it's not going to be a fun time for Walmart.
The US imported $3.3 Trillion in 2024 and had goods value add of $4.9 Trillion of which $2.1 Trillion were exports.
Given generally speaking imports and exports tend to be distinct products we would need to add 118% goods production to not need to import.
The US isn't capable of doing that in even a decade.
And it is going to impact everything because unlike most tariffs which exclude manufacturing goods this set hits everything so you cannot competitively produce things unless the entire production chain from raw materials is in the US.
big bulk importers (e.g. walmart sources) already have infrastructure to deal with import duties so its not like trade is going to come to a halt. IIUC realistically its small shippers that are going to get whacked like aliexpress or temu, shein.
What people get from Trump is almost always the opposite of what he promises them (if he is promising them what they want anyway), so I suspect he may be the best thing for the climate since COVID.
In a similar no-not-like-that kind of way, of course.
Does Temu? In Canada, I haven't received a thing from them through the post. It's all from small-time gig couriers. If they're not bringing it through the post, then it's getting brokered and applicable duties already paid by Temu.
But yes, the Etsy stuff is often sent piecemeal via Post.
Yes, well, sometimes. My wife used to shop there a lot. Some items 'came' from the US, which were little more than headshops and small warehouses, but shipping was much faster. Still, many items shipped directly from China to your mailbox.
What feels really gross is that they could ship a trinket from China to your door for less money than it would cost me to send it to someone in my own state.
Walmart has pretty much all of its product line outside the us. And the thing is trying to be Amazon with the option to shop all sorts if things to their store for purchase.
Right, but that all comes in via traditional retail logistics (container ships, railroad, semi trucks), not parcel carriers or the post office. This is not about delivery of products to retail customers.
I sell a niche, handmade product for a living from Canada and 90% of my sales are to the US and this bullshit really fucking sucks. Even our shipping partners don't know what is going on and usually can only fill us in on or after a due date goes past because nobody on either side of the border has any idea what to do or what is actually supposed to happen.
Here's the stupidity: USPS doesn't know who is supposed to collect the tariffs...hmm it's the person in the US who bought the product, and you collect money from them, like UPS and FedEx do all the time. It's going to your own government, how do they not understand? I know it's unrealistic for mail carriers to be able to do that en-masse now, but I'm not sure why they think Canada Post should be collecting tariffs, they don't have employees that deliver mail...IN THE US! So we can't ship with Canada Post to the US now as they'll just send it back. Canada Post can also strike again at any moment, but that's another story.
So the current advice is for us to now ship our products as Delivery Duty Paid or DDP, which means I'm supposed to pay the tariff that the buyer should be paying all because USPS doesn't know how to collect the money to give to their government. I'm getting double boned.
Oh yeah, I also have to pay an extra $2 per shipment to a broker now in addition to the tariffs, which nobody really has any clarity what they will be yet and there doesn't seem to be a good source saying if the items I sell are CUSMA or not.
It's one hell of a mess for sure, and especially damaging when you sell low ticket items on volume. I'm going to have to jack my shipping, which will hurt as our shipping is already more expensive than what someone would normally pay from someone within the US.
Once we can ship Delivery Duty Unpaid or DDU we will expect 4 out 5 customers to send angry emails asking what these "Hidden fees" are as we don't expect anyone to realize they actually need to pay tariffs and then we get stuck on the defensive side educating people what tariffs are and who caused them and who is supposed to pay them, which is not great for business, sanity or time :/
> Once we can ship Delivery Duty Unpaid or DDU we will expect 4 out 5 customers to send angry emails asking what these "Hidden fees" are as we don't expect anyone to realize they actually need to pay tariffs and then we get stuck on the defensive side educating people what tariffs are and who caused them and who is supposed to pay them, which is not great for business, sanity or time :/
Can you get ahead of this by putting a message on your checkout page when the recipient is in the US? Won't stop all of the complaints of course.
You, good sir, have made the mistake of thinking people can and will read!
We've put warnings for things on every single page, step of the checkout, and emails, and people still complain that things are a surprise, even after checking a box acknowledging the facts :(
The sad fact you learn after shipping 10k+ orders is that you can't prevent issues by preparing and telling people about them. It really sucks and defies all logic.
If they're not individualized items, send US$800 worth everyday for the next week to an Amerifriend to warehouse there and re-ship domestic on-demand if you can.
That's basically what US companies were doing with Chinese stuff when those tariffs were announced but not in force yet (and maybe earlier if they got early wind about it).
Dunno what's going on with NAFTA/CUSMA/USMCA. Changes with the wind. Or maybe you'll qualify for duty-free under our supposed trade agreement if you pay some assessor mafia $9999 to confirm that your handmade good is Made in Canada.
Unfortunately we make custom items. We'd have to move our actual operations to the US to really get ahead of the game, but I don't want the nightmare of having to hire someone and do business from within the US, especially if something goes wrong. Maybe if we were 5-10x the size I could afford it, but not at this moment.
>I'm going to have to jack my shipping, which will hurt as our shipping is already more expensive than what someone would normally pay from someone within the US.
That's the intention of the tariffs, correct? To create a cost advantage for US businesses against foreign competition.
They'd have to be much, much higher (and much, much less fickle - we've already had a bunch of pauses and revisions and random changes so far) for that to really work.
10-100% tariffs on Chinese-made goods still means those Chinese-made goods are dramatically cheaper than made-in-the-USA versions in most cases.
You’re missing that Trump has declared you pay the tariffs, which while contradictory to reality, must be simultaneously true and not true as he brooks no dissent. Therefore the USPS is frozen and trapped in the conundrum that is US politics.
If it makes you feel any better it’s worse for Americans having to live through this stuff. It’s going to be a long three and a half years.
I also don't bother advertising to Canada anymore as it's just more valuable for me to sell to the US in USD. I've spent a lot of time working on getting shipping as cheap as possible to make it alluring for the US and it currently is cheaper for me to send to California from near Toronto then it is to send something in my own city, let alone anywhere else in Canada. It is getting better here with these new cheap providers like Intelcom, but it's still not worth it when dealing with 10x the people paying me in a currency that's 1.38x mine.
I also sell something that has a max value people would be willing to pay, so if that number is $6, then I'd rather get $6 USD than $6 CAD.
So now some of those scam texts telling me that I need to pay a fee to get a package (that I didn’t remember ordering) a few will now be legitimate messages? That’s going to be a mess and lots more people getting scammed.
UPS and Fedex have made the fatal mistake of dropping off their items before even trying to collect their fees. Then they spam my (postal) mailbox with letters about having to pay extortionate brokerage fees. Can't say I've paid them all and can say they give up pretty quick if you circle file them.
FedEx recently started sending me mail to my parent's address saying I owe them $65 for a product I bought from the US a while ago... in 2014. I wonder if this is related to the whole Trump tariff thing? I haven't paid it, and I won't unless there's a good reason for me to.
Canada Post and others are already building out a system to collect the duties (from senders...). Something operated by a company called "Zonos". Looks like they've locked in the Universal Postal Union & governments will become dependent on a private entity for all of their customs needs. I'm sure they'll keep their prices low. https://www.upu.int/en/news/consultative-committee/activitie...
To be determined what Canada Post's charges will be in addition to the tariffs. If Canadian items inflate in price by 35% from the first $1, that's going to cook a lot of sellers/sales.
(Note: if it's sold on a marketplace like eBay, the US state/local/county/blah sales taxes are already being charged).
I plan on jacking up my "shipping" costs to USA to make it revenue neutral. But it's a bit of a pain if you sell items with different countries of origin and tariffs changing by the bathroom trip.
Do the prices of consumer-imported items get captured in inflation numbers?
>The company suggested that shippers use carriers with services in place that allow them to pay duties before goods arrive in the US, such as United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp.
Is there anything about those two companies, aside from the fact that they're not foreign or US public institutions having their remaining metaphorical windows smashed, that make you think this is payola?
Ding ding ding! From here on out it's all fake. I expect some private firms that are able to collect somewhat accurate economic data to make a killing, given the government is about to go full China and just lie about the numbers.
I sincerely hope a financial group out there knows these numbers or can compute them because we’re in uncharted territory here. Never has the United States been under assault from within like this. Without those numbers, no one would invest (wisely), and without influx, we can’t produce goods.
> You'll pay $1.99/month beginning today for 1 month. Then your subscription will automatically renew at $39.99 every month after the first month, unless you cancel before the 1 month intro period.
> Washington’s long-standing de minimis policy had allowed parcels packed with cheap items to flow into the US from around the world with little interruption or oversight, fueled by consumer demand for bargains and immediacy. Trump’s White House claims it’s a loophole used to evade tariffs and funnel illegal drugs.
> Now, postal services, online sellers, consumers and shipping companies are attempting to sort through the costly and complicated process to comply with US rules with little guidance from federal agencies.
I wonder what consideration individuals are giving this. . . The article says very little about consumer behavior save for the above two grafs. I very rarely buy directly from abroad and that is by design, with nothing to do re: de minimis. What bargains are people buying?! Especially in this economy.
I mostly research and analyze retro hardware as a hobby, most of which was made in Japan. All of my research acquisitions at least doubled in price this month, and quite a few sellers have decided to stop shipping to me entirely until the tarrif situation gets sorted.
These are 40+ year old consoles and accessories that are no longer being produced anywhere, certainly not in the United States. There will not be a factory built for these items, they're not in high demand. They just got way more expensive.
You’re confusing why we have tariffs. They aren’t doing this to bring back manufacturing to the US, they are doing this to shift tax burden to the lower classes.
There’s a reason why even folks that were pro tariff for the purposes of bringing back jobs to the US were completely dumbfounded on the sweeping, untargeted tariffs that look like they were drawn up by a drunk monkey with a sharpie and a map of the world.
And a large segment of the lower classes will happily suffer if they're told it's good for America, and bad for whichever marginalized community is being demonized right now.
If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
I personally buy things from abroad relatively regularly. Few times a year. Just bought a keyboard from Taiwan and stocked up on Japanese tea in preparation for this. Plenty of things come from abroad though even if you’re not searching it out. Of course there’s SHEIN, temu, and Alibaba but even Amazon has a good percentage of things that come from abroad. It’s kinda hidden but it’s seamless so until now it was hard to tell.
> I very rarely buy directly from abroad and that is by design
A lot of bigger Canadian sellers identify with a US location as they use a shipping service that trucks things over the border it's "received" by USPS in 1-2 business days. So they get away with it as long as they don't over-promise handling/delivery times.
For a book series that I’m a fan of, the biggest merch seller (eg. embroidered hoodies, shirts) is based in Canada and ships directly. With these changes, she’s just having to shut the store down entirely because she’d have to have prices triple or quadruple.
I buy wool sweaters from Europe. I don’t know of US equivalents to what I buy, and I doubt they’d be as cheap if I did find them, even with (expensive) shipping from Britain and Nordic countries.
I bought a linen sheet from Lithuania this year. I couldn’t find any in the US that weren’t just similar probably-imported-from-Lithuania-or-Italy foreign ones marked way up, or that didn’t set off my “this is low-quality bullshit sold at a premium” alarms.
I don’t know of a US equivalents to Dent’s Gloves. Not at the same price/quality combo, in those styles.
Raber Garbage Mitts from Canada. Dunno of US equivalents.
Last time I ordered Meermin shoes they shipped from Spain. They have or had some presence in NY too, but Spain’s where they shipped from.
If you want equestrian leather shoes, I dunno of anywhere but places that ship from Spain and Portugal that won’t empty your bank account for them.
Western riding shoes (“cowboy boots”), best bang for your buck by a long shot will probably come straight from Mexico. Or maybe Argentina.
Best bargains in decent hats I know come straight from Canada, the EU/Britain, Mexico, or Australia.
[edit] OK, so then what do I buy that’s made in America? Red Wing boots, Darn Tough socks, Rancourt and Company for loafers and mocs and such, Pendleton wool blankets and shirts (the cloth’s made in the US, anyway, though the sewing’s usually elsewhere) and a bunch of other MIUSA (and some Canadian and Italian) clothes but I only buy them used because I don’t make FAANG or finance tier wages (stuff like Sid Mashburn, made in NYC) so I’m not actually giving those companies money.
IDK I have one large Pendleton blanket, a robe, and about ten of their shirts, plus an old ex-army blanket that I suspect they made, and they’re pretty great. All but one of those items (one shirt) is long-fiber wool, so it’s the itchy kind, but 1) it gets a ton less-itchy with time & use (and I don’t mind anymore, regardless), and 2) I wear them as outdoor and work shirts so if they were fine wool or short fiber merino stuff, that’d be no good.
Yeah it’s not Italian super 150 or whatever, but I’m not wearing it in fine clothes, I hike and chop wood and shit wearing this stuff.
Most items on Amazon were until recently cheaper on Aliexpress (usually by 20-40%, but sometimes by 80%). The only exceptions were high volume non-Chinese-manufactured consumer goods, and food. This is where regular Americans might be affected, if they were buying clothes on Temu or whatever.
For me, most items on McMaster-Carr have Chinese equivalents available for 1/10th the price. This goes for many other things which are very "B2B" in the US but commonly sold to the public in other markets (PCBs, solar panels, power supplies, etc.). The quality might not be as good but a lot weekend projects were made viable by cutting out the middle man and/or cheap access to a larger market. (You can find some of this stuff eBay as well, at a moderate premium. Until recently most of it was shipped from China but there are plenty of importers with US warehouses on there as well.)
err, things like Etsy and other crafter-sized companies, including antiques and other things. Don't know whether used books will be affected as I've not bought any recently. E-stores like Amazon or LL Bean or others at scale might/will have difficulty servicing customers. And all the gifts coming from non-US residents at this point will be emails.
Not American nor stuck in America, but I recently bought a simple kit for building your own clock from a ton of basic chips and resistors (that crappy one Big Clive showed off), for about a dollar.
The thing that surprised me most was how on point the shipping emails have been. The kit itself is worth about a dollar and was great for my 8 year old to practice soldering. Though if I skim the Temu site, it’s like 98% absolute trash.
While your point is technically not wrong, it's not uncommon to consider and refer to the administration as a whole as the presidential count does not increment for consecutive terms. I'm guessing you knew this though, and we appreciate your bravery in being the pedantic one in a thread.
Ouch that must hurt! I see this in plenty of comments on HN actually. People lose track of the topic at hand, and debate at length on a couple of words in another comment.
The country is being run by an unholy cabal of crooks, cranks, and creeps who are using a nasty senile old man as a media distraction.
Google how many members of Trump's cabinet are employees of Fox/Murdoch.
There's nothing stupid about this. It's a traitorous attack on the fundamentals of freedom and democracy - a cynically planned and calculated attempt to replace a modern administrative state with a neo-aristocratic oligarchy that considers itself above any law, accountability, or morality.
Trump himself can barely finish his sentences. I have no doubt what's left of his mind approves of what's being done in his name, but I also have no doubt he has less of a mind than the media are showing.
Since you're flattening and addressing GPs comment with a political false dichotomy... A conspiracy isn't needed to explain the decay of culture, values, material conditions - all it takes is a set of incentives that don't align with broad public well-being, and some time. Move fast and break things!
Feudalism is back, baby! A simple reversion to the mean.
There's definitely a problem with gerontocracy, but the reason you heard about it so much last year is because the fascists use the technique of projection to preempt criticisms of themselves. Biden was passive demented, which probably didn't really matter all that much (group project). But this was used as cover for Trump's active combative micromanaging dementia that we're now all suffering.
Couldn't this backfire pretty badly, though? Raising a national conversation about the dementia of the last President makes it easier to have a conversation about the current one, right? I think the fact that the MSM outright lied to cover up Biden's mental decline is actually the root of the problem, because now they've lost credibility and appear hypocritical if they try to point out Trump's glaring mental deficits. If you're contending that the fascists pushed the issue of Biden's decline because they knew the MSM would cover it up and therefore lose credibility, I think you're giving them too much credit.
"Conversation" ? Do you really feel there is any kind of conversation happening?
I don't think it's possible for the MSM to lose any more credibility at this point. The only credibility left is people giving a pass to their flavor of MSM for articles that confirm their biases - same dynamic as social media posts.
For the timeline, Trump has been rambling word salad well before it was an issue for Biden. The difference is that for republicans/fascists, mental incompetence is an endearing feature ("he sounds like the kind of person I could have a beer with"), and the democrats/conservatives application of used-to-be-societal-values is seen as a weakness whereby they're getting "triggered".
I don't think the whole story arc needed to be planned ahead of time strategically. Rather I think it comes from flooding the zone with shit that might stick, and then the chaos creates opportunities.
off-topic: As a Canadian, I set up an XM Radio, so I now hear a lot more US ads than I usually do (their music stations are ad-free, but the news channel feeds sub the commercials).
Does everyone in USA need a loan in 24h, has IRS problems and is looking to sell (not buy, but sell) their life insurance policy? It's better than Kars4Kids, but I thought people paying for radio might be in a better financial position?
People paying for XM radio today probably paid for XM radio a decade ago, which means they skew older. Maybe they're retirees that now have a limited budget, so they have collateral for a loan and have a health insurance policy to sell.
Unless you live/drive the wilderness, you probably have better radio options from cell phone. And in my neck of the wilderness, the trees ruin xm reception anyway. :P
dunno, but they have 33 million paying subscribers, paying an average $15/month (!)
And that's not including Pandora. That's another 5.8 million subs at ~$6.50/month.
Per their Annual Report for 2024.
They're doing a much better job than satellite TV. At least in Canada, it's in a linear decline. Someone did an analysis and found they'd have like 0 subscribers within 10 years at their trajectory.
Not sure what kind of people listen to XM news, but I’ve never heard any of these ads anywhere here in the US with the exception of an occasional payday loan ad.
I meant their audio-feeds of CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC and... not sure what's on Fox News. That's why those channels have commercials, because the source does, but they overwrite them with XM-specific advertising.
Please don't reply to a bad comment with another bad one. Please make an effort to observe the guidelines, especially these ones:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
There's two elements to this:
1. Removal of de minimis / low-value duty free exemption. Plenty of countries have very low thresholds to start collecting sales tax on imports. A moot point as a lot of platforms (Etsy/Amazon/Ebay/Aliexpress/Temu) charge the destination's US/EU/Aus sales taxes already. Usually a higher threshold to start collecting duty. Duty is much more cognitively difficult to assess. Historically, sales taxes were more than duty for most items anyway. US is now another exception here.
2. US not accepting "duty-unpaid" postal shipments. This is VERY unusual.
As of today, I can walk into the post office and send a parcel to any country in the world. The destination customs will figure out if/what duty/taxes are owed and collect it from the recipient. I don't need to know, nor care, what the rates are in Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Colombia or San Marino. The buyer should know and can complain to their gov if it's unreasonable/incorrect.
Next month, USA will be the sole exception to that. Air freight to USA is going to get a lot cheaper if anyone is looking.
> US not accepting "duty-unpaid" postal shipments. This is VERY unusual.
To maintain the illusion that the sender pays for tariffs?
Keep receipts and customs declarations on everything imported. There's a lawsuit underway and it may well be decided that Trump doesn't have the authority to levy tariffs at all under the Emergency Economic Powers Act. In that case, importers will be due a refund.[1] The Constitution says that Congress sets tariffs and the Emergency Economic Powers Act doesn't mention tariffs. As usual, Trump's strategy is to stall, probably until 2026 when this is expected to reach the Supreme Court. Congress could enact Trump's tariff schedule to resolve this, but that would lock it into law.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/what-happens-next-u...
> To maintain the illusion that the sender pays for tariffs?
I think it’s both that and the overwhelming reluctance to tell (and perhaps hire more) people carrying guns in an already safe and secure area to do (paper)work.
Similar issue in Canada where border officers allegedly do enforcement and provide services but want to focus on the “bad guy” enforcement part. Helping people out or sending bills to grandma wasn’t what they were promised when they signed up.
https://archive.is/824JT
For at least the near term, parcels won't be shipped into the US. Once things stabilize, they'll figure out who'll pay the tariffs stemming from suspending de minimus. But it's going to affect small companies outside the US and the cost of goods entering from outside.
That's the intent, but it's going to result in some lean months or years until the payola is delivered or the factories are (re)built. And it's not going to be a fun time for Walmart.
The US imported $3.3 Trillion in 2024 and had goods value add of $4.9 Trillion of which $2.1 Trillion were exports.
Given generally speaking imports and exports tend to be distinct products we would need to add 118% goods production to not need to import.
The US isn't capable of doing that in even a decade.
And it is going to impact everything because unlike most tariffs which exclude manufacturing goods this set hits everything so you cannot competitively produce things unless the entire production chain from raw materials is in the US.
big bulk importers (e.g. walmart sources) already have infrastructure to deal with import duties so its not like trade is going to come to a halt. IIUC realistically its small shippers that are going to get whacked like aliexpress or temu, shein.
So what you're saying is that Trump is... a tree-hugging environmentalist by dint of being a de-growther?
What people get from Trump is almost always the opposite of what he promises them (if he is promising them what they want anyway), so I suspect he may be the best thing for the climate since COVID.
In a similar no-not-like-that kind of way, of course.
> Once things stabilize
Seems unlikely under the current administration
Walmart? You mean Temu and Etsy. Walmart doesn't ship their inventory piecemeal through the post.
Does Temu? In Canada, I haven't received a thing from them through the post. It's all from small-time gig couriers. If they're not bringing it through the post, then it's getting brokered and applicable duties already paid by Temu.
But yes, the Etsy stuff is often sent piecemeal via Post.
Yes, well, sometimes. My wife used to shop there a lot. Some items 'came' from the US, which were little more than headshops and small warehouses, but shipping was much faster. Still, many items shipped directly from China to your mailbox.
What feels really gross is that they could ship a trinket from China to your door for less money than it would cost me to send it to someone in my own state.
Walmart has pretty much all of its product line outside the us. And the thing is trying to be Amazon with the option to shop all sorts if things to their store for purchase.
Right, but that all comes in via traditional retail logistics (container ships, railroad, semi trucks), not parcel carriers or the post office. This is not about delivery of products to retail customers.
>> it's going to result in some lean months or years
There's a lot of government officials in their 80s, I'm betting a lot of them will die and these tariffs get thrown out with them.
It's an instant win for any politician to lower taxes on consumers.
There’s only one relevant old fart politician for this tariff bs.
I sell a niche, handmade product for a living from Canada and 90% of my sales are to the US and this bullshit really fucking sucks. Even our shipping partners don't know what is going on and usually can only fill us in on or after a due date goes past because nobody on either side of the border has any idea what to do or what is actually supposed to happen.
Here's the stupidity: USPS doesn't know who is supposed to collect the tariffs...hmm it's the person in the US who bought the product, and you collect money from them, like UPS and FedEx do all the time. It's going to your own government, how do they not understand? I know it's unrealistic for mail carriers to be able to do that en-masse now, but I'm not sure why they think Canada Post should be collecting tariffs, they don't have employees that deliver mail...IN THE US! So we can't ship with Canada Post to the US now as they'll just send it back. Canada Post can also strike again at any moment, but that's another story.
So the current advice is for us to now ship our products as Delivery Duty Paid or DDP, which means I'm supposed to pay the tariff that the buyer should be paying all because USPS doesn't know how to collect the money to give to their government. I'm getting double boned.
Oh yeah, I also have to pay an extra $2 per shipment to a broker now in addition to the tariffs, which nobody really has any clarity what they will be yet and there doesn't seem to be a good source saying if the items I sell are CUSMA or not.
It's one hell of a mess for sure, and especially damaging when you sell low ticket items on volume. I'm going to have to jack my shipping, which will hurt as our shipping is already more expensive than what someone would normally pay from someone within the US.
Once we can ship Delivery Duty Unpaid or DDU we will expect 4 out 5 customers to send angry emails asking what these "Hidden fees" are as we don't expect anyone to realize they actually need to pay tariffs and then we get stuck on the defensive side educating people what tariffs are and who caused them and who is supposed to pay them, which is not great for business, sanity or time :/
> Once we can ship Delivery Duty Unpaid or DDU we will expect 4 out 5 customers to send angry emails asking what these "Hidden fees" are as we don't expect anyone to realize they actually need to pay tariffs and then we get stuck on the defensive side educating people what tariffs are and who caused them and who is supposed to pay them, which is not great for business, sanity or time :/
Can you get ahead of this by putting a message on your checkout page when the recipient is in the US? Won't stop all of the complaints of course.
You, good sir, have made the mistake of thinking people can and will read!
We've put warnings for things on every single page, step of the checkout, and emails, and people still complain that things are a surprise, even after checking a box acknowledging the facts :(
The sad fact you learn after shipping 10k+ orders is that you can't prevent issues by preparing and telling people about them. It really sucks and defies all logic.
If they're not individualized items, send US$800 worth everyday for the next week to an Amerifriend to warehouse there and re-ship domestic on-demand if you can.
That's basically what US companies were doing with Chinese stuff when those tariffs were announced but not in force yet (and maybe earlier if they got early wind about it).
Dunno what's going on with NAFTA/CUSMA/USMCA. Changes with the wind. Or maybe you'll qualify for duty-free under our supposed trade agreement if you pay some assessor mafia $9999 to confirm that your handmade good is Made in Canada.
Unfortunately we make custom items. We'd have to move our actual operations to the US to really get ahead of the game, but I don't want the nightmare of having to hire someone and do business from within the US, especially if something goes wrong. Maybe if we were 5-10x the size I could afford it, but not at this moment.
> We'd have to move our actual operations to the US to really get ahead of the game
It's almost as if this is exactly what the tariffs were designed to accomplish.
(I'm not saying I agree with the situation, but this is the hard reality of it.)
>I'm going to have to jack my shipping, which will hurt as our shipping is already more expensive than what someone would normally pay from someone within the US.
That's the intention of the tariffs, correct? To create a cost advantage for US businesses against foreign competition.
They'd have to be much, much higher (and much, much less fickle - we've already had a bunch of pauses and revisions and random changes so far) for that to really work.
10-100% tariffs on Chinese-made goods still means those Chinese-made goods are dramatically cheaper than made-in-the-USA versions in most cases.
You’re missing that Trump has declared you pay the tariffs, which while contradictory to reality, must be simultaneously true and not true as he brooks no dissent. Therefore the USPS is frozen and trapped in the conundrum that is US politics.
If it makes you feel any better it’s worse for Americans having to live through this stuff. It’s going to be a long three and a half years.
It’ll be a lot longer before things recover. If they ever do. The damage is tremendous, and only getting started.
90% number checks out as Canada is ~1/10th the population of the US.
I also don't bother advertising to Canada anymore as it's just more valuable for me to sell to the US in USD. I've spent a lot of time working on getting shipping as cheap as possible to make it alluring for the US and it currently is cheaper for me to send to California from near Toronto then it is to send something in my own city, let alone anywhere else in Canada. It is getting better here with these new cheap providers like Intelcom, but it's still not worth it when dealing with 10x the people paying me in a currency that's 1.38x mine.
I also sell something that has a max value people would be willing to pay, so if that number is $6, then I'd rather get $6 USD than $6 CAD.
Even Brexit wasn't this embarrassing.
Brexit was about equally as insane as this, it's just that unless you were in the UK or Ireland you could mostly ignore it.
The US doing similar stuff is much harder to ignore.
So now some of those scam texts telling me that I need to pay a fee to get a package (that I didn’t remember ordering) a few will now be legitimate messages? That’s going to be a mess and lots more people getting scammed.
UPS and Fedex have made the fatal mistake of dropping off their items before even trying to collect their fees. Then they spam my (postal) mailbox with letters about having to pay extortionate brokerage fees. Can't say I've paid them all and can say they give up pretty quick if you circle file them.
FedEx recently started sending me mail to my parent's address saying I owe them $65 for a product I bought from the US a while ago... in 2014. I wonder if this is related to the whole Trump tariff thing? I haven't paid it, and I won't unless there's a good reason for me to.
Yeah, and then they circle-file your address and any future shipments to it.
so far, so good
I literally just ordered something from the UK and it was shipped a few days ago. Ugh.
Is this in-part payola to FedEx?
Seems they (and UPS) will be winners in this.
Canada Post and others are already building out a system to collect the duties (from senders...). Something operated by a company called "Zonos". Looks like they've locked in the Universal Postal Union & governments will become dependent on a private entity for all of their customs needs. I'm sure they'll keep their prices low. https://www.upu.int/en/news/consultative-committee/activitie...
To be determined what Canada Post's charges will be in addition to the tariffs. If Canadian items inflate in price by 35% from the first $1, that's going to cook a lot of sellers/sales.
(Note: if it's sold on a marketplace like eBay, the US state/local/county/blah sales taxes are already being charged).
I plan on jacking up my "shipping" costs to USA to make it revenue neutral. But it's a bit of a pain if you sell items with different countries of origin and tariffs changing by the bathroom trip.
Do the prices of consumer-imported items get captured in inflation numbers?
Biggest robbery of the century, privatizing duty tax collection... what a racket to be in.
The relevant quote from the article:
>The company suggested that shippers use carriers with services in place that allow them to pay duties before goods arrive in the US, such as United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp.
Is there anything about those two companies, aside from the fact that they're not foreign or US public institutions having their remaining metaphorical windows smashed, that make you think this is payola?
There’s no winners here. This nonsense is killing commerce.
The crash in October is going to be devastating.
Why do you think he’s going after the BLS, the Fed, and replacing all the senior military and FBI types with toadies?
To lie about the numbers and pretend everything is fine?
Ding ding ding! From here on out it's all fake. I expect some private firms that are able to collect somewhat accurate economic data to make a killing, given the government is about to go full China and just lie about the numbers.
I sincerely hope a financial group out there knows these numbers or can compute them because we’re in uncharted territory here. Never has the United States been under assault from within like this. Without those numbers, no one would invest (wisely), and without influx, we can’t produce goods.
Christmas is going to suck so badly this year.
The article says I can't read it unless I pay Bloomberg their $1.99 tariff.
Read the fine text
> You'll pay $1.99/month beginning today for 1 month. Then your subscription will automatically renew at $39.99 every month after the first month, unless you cancel before the 1 month intro period.
lol 20x increase after the first month
Load on Firefox, switch to reader mode.
don't bother with Lynx though: "We've detected unusual activity from your computer network".
No you didn't!
They still haven't retracted their lies from the Supermicro hit piece so I say good riddance.
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Not a tariff. Nice try at a joke though!!
oh whoa really?
Damn it, I have an aliexpress order from a few days ago en route :(
It might only apply for goods that get on the water / in the air after the change, not those already in transit.
That would unreasonably assume competence.
> Washington’s long-standing de minimis policy had allowed parcels packed with cheap items to flow into the US from around the world with little interruption or oversight, fueled by consumer demand for bargains and immediacy. Trump’s White House claims it’s a loophole used to evade tariffs and funnel illegal drugs.
> Now, postal services, online sellers, consumers and shipping companies are attempting to sort through the costly and complicated process to comply with US rules with little guidance from federal agencies.
I wonder what consideration individuals are giving this. . . The article says very little about consumer behavior save for the above two grafs. I very rarely buy directly from abroad and that is by design, with nothing to do re: de minimis. What bargains are people buying?! Especially in this economy.
I mostly research and analyze retro hardware as a hobby, most of which was made in Japan. All of my research acquisitions at least doubled in price this month, and quite a few sellers have decided to stop shipping to me entirely until the tarrif situation gets sorted.
These are 40+ year old consoles and accessories that are no longer being produced anywhere, certainly not in the United States. There will not be a factory built for these items, they're not in high demand. They just got way more expensive.
You’re confusing why we have tariffs. They aren’t doing this to bring back manufacturing to the US, they are doing this to shift tax burden to the lower classes.
There’s a reason why even folks that were pro tariff for the purposes of bringing back jobs to the US were completely dumbfounded on the sweeping, untargeted tariffs that look like they were drawn up by a drunk monkey with a sharpie and a map of the world.
And a large segment of the lower classes will happily suffer if they're told it's good for America, and bad for whichever marginalized community is being demonized right now.
If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
- Lyndon B. Johnson
It's nothing like that level of reasoned and logical. It's all out George III-level barking madness.
I personally buy things from abroad relatively regularly. Few times a year. Just bought a keyboard from Taiwan and stocked up on Japanese tea in preparation for this. Plenty of things come from abroad though even if you’re not searching it out. Of course there’s SHEIN, temu, and Alibaba but even Amazon has a good percentage of things that come from abroad. It’s kinda hidden but it’s seamless so until now it was hard to tell.
> I very rarely buy directly from abroad and that is by design
A lot of bigger Canadian sellers identify with a US location as they use a shipping service that trucks things over the border it's "received" by USPS in 1-2 business days. So they get away with it as long as they don't over-promise handling/delivery times.
You can save a lot of money on random stuff from Temu/Aliexpress compared to Amazon. In my experience, often times going to be the same exact item.
Bags, odds and ends around the house, component assortments, screw assortments, and some tools (with careful judgement).
Sometimes the difference is only 1/3rd the cost, but I’ve had some items be 1/20th the cost by removing Amazon and whichever third party seller.
It's niche, but this is devastating the miniature wargaming industry, which is heavily based on small firms in the UK.
For a book series that I’m a fan of, the biggest merch seller (eg. embroidered hoodies, shirts) is based in Canada and ships directly. With these changes, she’s just having to shut the store down entirely because she’d have to have prices triple or quadruple.
I buy wool sweaters from Europe. I don’t know of US equivalents to what I buy, and I doubt they’d be as cheap if I did find them, even with (expensive) shipping from Britain and Nordic countries.
I bought a linen sheet from Lithuania this year. I couldn’t find any in the US that weren’t just similar probably-imported-from-Lithuania-or-Italy foreign ones marked way up, or that didn’t set off my “this is low-quality bullshit sold at a premium” alarms.
I don’t know of a US equivalents to Dent’s Gloves. Not at the same price/quality combo, in those styles.
Raber Garbage Mitts from Canada. Dunno of US equivalents.
Last time I ordered Meermin shoes they shipped from Spain. They have or had some presence in NY too, but Spain’s where they shipped from.
If you want equestrian leather shoes, I dunno of anywhere but places that ship from Spain and Portugal that won’t empty your bank account for them.
Western riding shoes (“cowboy boots”), best bang for your buck by a long shot will probably come straight from Mexico. Or maybe Argentina.
Best bargains in decent hats I know come straight from Canada, the EU/Britain, Mexico, or Australia.
[edit] OK, so then what do I buy that’s made in America? Red Wing boots, Darn Tough socks, Rancourt and Company for loafers and mocs and such, Pendleton wool blankets and shirts (the cloth’s made in the US, anyway, though the sewing’s usually elsewhere) and a bunch of other MIUSA (and some Canadian and Italian) clothes but I only buy them used because I don’t make FAANG or finance tier wages (stuff like Sid Mashburn, made in NYC) so I’m not actually giving those companies money.
US wool is crap.
IDK I have one large Pendleton blanket, a robe, and about ten of their shirts, plus an old ex-army blanket that I suspect they made, and they’re pretty great. All but one of those items (one shirt) is long-fiber wool, so it’s the itchy kind, but 1) it gets a ton less-itchy with time & use (and I don’t mind anymore, regardless), and 2) I wear them as outdoor and work shirts so if they were fine wool or short fiber merino stuff, that’d be no good.
Yeah it’s not Italian super 150 or whatever, but I’m not wearing it in fine clothes, I hike and chop wood and shit wearing this stuff.
Most items on Amazon were until recently cheaper on Aliexpress (usually by 20-40%, but sometimes by 80%). The only exceptions were high volume non-Chinese-manufactured consumer goods, and food. This is where regular Americans might be affected, if they were buying clothes on Temu or whatever.
For me, most items on McMaster-Carr have Chinese equivalents available for 1/10th the price. This goes for many other things which are very "B2B" in the US but commonly sold to the public in other markets (PCBs, solar panels, power supplies, etc.). The quality might not be as good but a lot weekend projects were made viable by cutting out the middle man and/or cheap access to a larger market. (You can find some of this stuff eBay as well, at a moderate premium. Until recently most of it was shipped from China but there are plenty of importers with US warehouses on there as well.)
err, things like Etsy and other crafter-sized companies, including antiques and other things. Don't know whether used books will be affected as I've not bought any recently. E-stores like Amazon or LL Bean or others at scale might/will have difficulty servicing customers. And all the gifts coming from non-US residents at this point will be emails.
Not American nor stuck in America, but I recently bought a simple kit for building your own clock from a ton of basic chips and resistors (that crappy one Big Clive showed off), for about a dollar.
The thing that surprised me most was how on point the shipping emails have been. The kit itself is worth about a dollar and was great for my 8 year old to practice soldering. Though if I skim the Temu site, it’s like 98% absolute trash.
Damn. I thought I had another week to order stuff before this nonsense started.
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We haven't voted for a president who uses computers since 2008.
"Everything's computer" - Donald J Trump
Trump clearly uses a smartphone. Too much, even. Doesn't count?
So first term Obama did, but second term Obama did not? Am I understanding that right?
While your point is technically not wrong, it's not uncommon to consider and refer to the administration as a whole as the presidential count does not increment for consecutive terms. I'm guessing you knew this though, and we appreciate your bravery in being the pedantic one in a thread.
Ouch that must hurt! I see this in plenty of comments on HN actually. People lose track of the topic at hand, and debate at length on a couple of words in another comment.
It's the faux-autism a lot of techies like to effect. I see it in my workplace all the time.
The country is being run by an unholy cabal of crooks, cranks, and creeps who are using a nasty senile old man as a media distraction.
Google how many members of Trump's cabinet are employees of Fox/Murdoch.
There's nothing stupid about this. It's a traitorous attack on the fundamentals of freedom and democracy - a cynically planned and calculated attempt to replace a modern administrative state with a neo-aristocratic oligarchy that considers itself above any law, accountability, or morality.
Trump himself can barely finish his sentences. I have no doubt what's left of his mind approves of what's being done in his name, but I also have no doubt he has less of a mind than the media are showing.
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At least the Biden presidency was distinguishable from a subversive attack engineered by America's enemies. The Trump presidency is not.
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Since you're flattening and addressing GPs comment with a political false dichotomy... A conspiracy isn't needed to explain the decay of culture, values, material conditions - all it takes is a set of incentives that don't align with broad public well-being, and some time. Move fast and break things!
Feudalism is back, baby! A simple reversion to the mean.
Does it really matter whether it’s a conspiracy when the end results are the same?
There's definitely a problem with gerontocracy, but the reason you heard about it so much last year is because the fascists use the technique of projection to preempt criticisms of themselves. Biden was passive demented, which probably didn't really matter all that much (group project). But this was used as cover for Trump's active combative micromanaging dementia that we're now all suffering.
Couldn't this backfire pretty badly, though? Raising a national conversation about the dementia of the last President makes it easier to have a conversation about the current one, right? I think the fact that the MSM outright lied to cover up Biden's mental decline is actually the root of the problem, because now they've lost credibility and appear hypocritical if they try to point out Trump's glaring mental deficits. If you're contending that the fascists pushed the issue of Biden's decline because they knew the MSM would cover it up and therefore lose credibility, I think you're giving them too much credit.
"Conversation" ? Do you really feel there is any kind of conversation happening?
I don't think it's possible for the MSM to lose any more credibility at this point. The only credibility left is people giving a pass to their flavor of MSM for articles that confirm their biases - same dynamic as social media posts.
For the timeline, Trump has been rambling word salad well before it was an issue for Biden. The difference is that for republicans/fascists, mental incompetence is an endearing feature ("he sounds like the kind of person I could have a beer with"), and the democrats/conservatives application of used-to-be-societal-values is seen as a weakness whereby they're getting "triggered".
I don't think the whole story arc needed to be planned ahead of time strategically. Rather I think it comes from flooding the zone with shit that might stick, and then the chaos creates opportunities.
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Do you receive a lot of credit card offers from overseas?
off-topic: As a Canadian, I set up an XM Radio, so I now hear a lot more US ads than I usually do (their music stations are ad-free, but the news channel feeds sub the commercials).
Does everyone in USA need a loan in 24h, has IRS problems and is looking to sell (not buy, but sell) their life insurance policy? It's better than Kars4Kids, but I thought people paying for radio might be in a better financial position?
People paying for XM radio today probably paid for XM radio a decade ago, which means they skew older. Maybe they're retirees that now have a limited budget, so they have collateral for a loan and have a health insurance policy to sell.
Unless you live/drive the wilderness, you probably have better radio options from cell phone. And in my neck of the wilderness, the trees ruin xm reception anyway. :P
dunno, but they have 33 million paying subscribers, paying an average $15/month (!)
And that's not including Pandora. That's another 5.8 million subs at ~$6.50/month.
Per their Annual Report for 2024.
They're doing a much better job than satellite TV. At least in Canada, it's in a linear decline. Someone did an analysis and found they'd have like 0 subscribers within 10 years at their trajectory.
Not sure what kind of people listen to XM news, but I’ve never heard any of these ads anywhere here in the US with the exception of an occasional payday loan ad.
I meant their audio-feeds of CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC and... not sure what's on Fox News. That's why those channels have commercials, because the source does, but they overwrite them with XM-specific advertising.
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Please don't reply to a bad comment with another bad one. Please make an effort to observe the guidelines, especially these ones:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html