If this morning’s email from keyboard.io is any indication, USians are 48 hours away from really starting to feel Trump’s tariffs and it’s not going to be fun:
“Other than a few months working with an expensive US warehouse that had a habit of breaking or losing our keyboards, we've always fulfilled our keyboards out of Hong Kong. It’s close to our factory, reasonably priced, and can easily handle fulfilling orders going all around the world.
Historically, U.S. residents could place small international orders, up to $800 value, without having to pay import duty. This was called the ‘de minimis’ rule.
Now, the de minimis rule is going away, so everything made in China and shipped to the US will be taxed. For our products, this tax currently ranges from 20% to 145%.
The exact mechanics of how this is going to work are fuzzy. While we expect that people will stop importing as much due to tariffs making it unaffordable, it still implies a lot of additional work for customs. It's not clear to us—or the carriers—that customs is staffed up to handle this increased volume, and we’re expecting that any packages arriving to the USA once the de minimis rule goes away may have long processing delays.
Anticipating long delays, DHL has already stopped taking any packages that require formal customs clearances into the USA. HK Post, another carrier we use, will suspend service to the USA entirely beginning in a few days. We expect other carriers to change their fee schedule and availability too.”
@aral This might put the confusion in Dover after Brexit to shame.
I'm getting my popcorn ready.