US Tariffs: $80-$200 Surcharge On All Packages Regardless of Price

[mamba]

Which ultimately would prove effective in reducing imports, the stated goal of the tariffs policy. If noone dares to deliver to a country, its trade balance will certainly improve greatly.

so far the trade balance has gotten worse though...

 

[mamba]

The refusal stuff like dhl refusing to ship business to consumer packages worth over 800$ was temporary and dhl already worked it out
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/20/business/dhl-global-shipments-us-suspension-intl-hnk

your link is from April, I doubt it is about the current situation

 

[bedir than]

your link is from April, I doubt it is about the current situation

The current situation is that DHL stopped

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/22/business/dhl-us-shipments-de-minimis-intl

 

[tetrasodium]

your link is from April, I doubt it is about the current situation

Same basic situation, a more recent link was provided in post 95. Quoting that,
"August 25 will be the last day it takes consignments, but premium delivery service DHL Express will not be affected by the suspension, the company added.

It said private customers could continue to send gifts worth less than $100 to the US as a standard parcel but these shipments would be subject to even stricter controls to prevent misuse.
On Thursday, Austrian Post said it would no longer take consignments for US-bound standard parcels from next Tuesday." It's still about the de minimis ex exemption and what it takes to ship without it in place.

Rather than talking about how dhl is reacting to de minimis changes made to end abuse of China post's epacket and origin washing here is a great article about epacket and why it created so many problems

Why and How China Post and USPS are Killing Your Private Labeling Business

Is this the end of ePacket and cheap shipping from China? Continue reading to understand the history of ePacket and understand whether it’s the end of cheap shipping from China.

www.ecomcrew.com

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

DHL ceased shipping? That implies they ever shipped to begin with - any time a vendor sends me a DHL tracking link a little piece of me dies.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

the difference is that they do 'know' of every package coming in, they know nothing about what people download

We can spin this even further, when I buy a car, either the whole thing was imported or parts were imported and taxed at that time, all of that is relatively easy to track. How much of, say, MS Word was developed in the US, vs India, and how do you tax that?


I am not, Trump might very well post another deranged tweet about this, I am talking about the implementation of the deranged intent. Just like the movie tweet, there will be no follow-up (and that one even is theoretically possible to enforce, it just is really stupid and harmful to do so)

Mod Note:

I know it’s a difficult topic in which to avoid politics, but let’s not go further than this, please.

 

[NN]

DHL ceased shipping? That implies they ever shipped to begin with - any time a vendor sends me a DHL tracking link a little piece of me dies.

This is slighlty unfair. DHL are just terrble in the USA. In other parts of the world they range from no worse than the others to the best of a bad lot.

Well that’s called smuggling. It’s a crime. And sure, people will do crime, but at that point it’s an enforcement issue.

You say “smuggling” , I say “efficient export paperwork”.

 

[Barner Cobblewood]

Not sure I got the whole chain before your post but I think I can shed some clarity on the question you seem to be asking. The tarrifs are intended to make it harder to have foreign manufacturing warehousing fulfillment and shipping, switching to domestic alternatives is more costly, and potentially very difficult yes, but that's where the USTR port fee changes come in to adjust things with a somewhat sweeter pot.

This doesn't address what I quoted. Cergorach said that goods shipped to Mexico from Canada would pay tariffs in the US. He seemed to imply that a tariff was charged on every item that transits through the US. Is this true? E.g. Does the US now intercept all mail at all bonded facilities, regardless of destination? I'd be very surprised if this was true.

 

[Morrus]

This doesn't address what I quoted. Cergorach said that goods shipped to Mexico from Canada would pay tariffs in the US. He seemed to imply that a tariff was charged on every item that transits through the US. Is this true? E.g. Does the US now intercept all mail at all bonded facilities, regardless of destination? I'd be very surprised if this was true.

It depends how it’s shipped.

If the manufacturer ships a container of goods to their warehouse in the US, and then fulfills individual orders from there, the manufacturer will have paid the tariff when their shipment arrived in the US.

 

[Staffan]

This doesn't address what I quoted. Cergorach said that goods shipped to Mexico from Canada would pay tariffs in the US. He seemed to imply that a tariff was charged on every item that transits through the US. Is this true? E.g. Does the US now intercept all mail at all bonded facilities, regardless of destination? I'd be very surprised if this was true.

In most of the northern hemisphere there is a system called the TIR convention which allows a shipper to put goods on a sealed truck, have it travel through a number of intermediary countries, and only pay customs/tariffs in the final destination country. As far as I can tell, the USA and Canada are signatories to this convention, but Mexico is not (so I guess for them it's mostly relevant for transit from Alaska to the lower 48 and back). I don't know if NAFTA or whatever its replacement is has a similar allowance.