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Comment by abrookewood | Hacker News Reader

Any idea why?? Presumably the tariff/trade debate?

Probably attempting to correct the shipping imbalance. Shipping china to US is much cheaper than shipping US to china. My understanding is that a large part of that is due to china not needing to pay full local delivery(USPS) fees. Something with how international mail is governed.

I think it is this but I don't have access. https://www.upu.int/en/Postal-Solutions/Programmes-Services/...

And I found this article which is probably relevant(2019). https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/upu-postal-rate-change/...

update with an actual current article: https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/trump-tariff-de-minimis...

The orders against China, Canada and Mexico all halt a trade exemption, known as “de minimis,” which allows exporters to ship packages worth less than $800 into the U.S. duty free, arguing it has helped Chinese e-commerce companies undercut competitors with lower prices.

I don't mind paying an extra 10% on small electronics imports (mostly ESP32 CPUs and related modules for hobby projects). I mean, I do a bit but I rarely order more than $100 of goods at a time, it's just an annoyance rather than a real problem.

I DO mind not getting my orders delivered.

The language of the order getting rid of the exemption seems to reclassify all Chinese post as formal post to get around the exemption.

That means the amount of dues is still calculated as a (fraction of a) percentage, but there is a minimum of about 30 dollars. That means a $10 order of components or LEDs can end up costing you $42 to actually get it through the mail.

When you go beyond those thirty dollars, the rate isn't too steep, though, so you can still order in large quantities.

My guess is that because of Trump's "de-minimus" change the USPS will now have to collect import duty on each and every parcel - they've probably stopped so that they can tool up for doing this. The annoying part of buying something is going to be physically going down to the Post Office and paying them, (or possibly having to poll them to pay online).

I live in NZ, manufacture open source hardware in China and ship from there. I ship all over the world, some countries charge import duty, some don't, but as an exporter I NEVER have to pay anyone's tariffs - Americans are going to learn who pays tariffs because now you personally will get the bill and have to deal with the annoyance of having to pay it.

Note: NZ charges import duty (which here is essentially our sales tax), they have deals with places like AliExpress/Digikey/etc to pay it at source (ie it shows up in your cart as you check out)

PRC hit back with tariffs vs Mexico/Canada buying time by conceding on border / drugs.

Mexico/Canada conceding by restating actions they had already agreed to months ago?

Conceded _more_, i.e. CAN adding fentanyl czar, whatever that entails, MX adding another 10k troops. Western reporting alleged PRC would offer restoring phase1 trade, but PRC did the opposite and counter tariffed, on energy and agriculture goods, so relative to CAN/MX it's escalating/rejecting or no sign of conceding.

Is there a primary source for sending "additional troops" by Mexico? All I found was the twitter post from Mexico's president:

https://x.com/Claudiashein/status/1886434747238514776

And the summary of the speech on on instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/firstpost/reel/DFntTIlvOpe/

Neither confirm additional troops rather than just having 10k at the border.

A lot of the English reporting I'm reading said "reinforce" which implies addition. I don't speak spanish but the tweet from Sheinbaum also translates to "reinforce" if translation valid:

>1. Mexico will immediately reinforce the northern border with 10,000 members of the National Guard to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States, particularly fentanyl.

> A lot of the English reporting I'm reading said "reinforce" which implies addition.

Agree it implies addition, but if you promise to send 10k, then make another promise to send 10k, then send 10k you kept both promises to send 10k.

An article saying home many troops are going to be on the border ie 10k vs 20k. Or clarity on if 10k had already been sent to the border before the pledge to Trump for 10k reinforcements. Or something that goes in to detail about the timing and number of troop deployments would clear up the issue.

I love the “fentanyl czar” position because that’s how american special ministers are named. Give a minister the portfolio, but dumb it down for the orange guy.

Canada 'conceded' to increase border security to 10,000 border officers (It currently has 16,000), to spend 200 million on border security (Which it planned to since November), and to hire a 'fentanyl czar'[1].

Trump got paid with his own coin.

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[1] To match the power players of the Trump administration's all-star television celebrity cabinet, I nominate Robb Wells, who did an exceptional job playing Ricky on Trailer Park Boys.

I nominate Ya’ara Saks

They are trying to close the de minimis exception which is a, "100-year-old tariff loophole that Trump wants to close."

https://www.theverge.com/news/605483/shein-temu-amazon-trump...

Why stop the packages though? Just make the shipper declare a value and let the receiver pay the tariff if they want their package.

My guess is customs isn't prepared to inspect that volume of packages and would need to up their infrastructure to handle it.

The USA doesn't inspect every package -- almost all current tariffs are on the honor system. They could start by checking every 1 in 10,000 packages and then build up the system until they're spot-checking x in 100.

Customs doesn't even know what half the shit is. If I order a quarter-pound of palladium for $4,000 from China, but pay tariffs on 4 ounces of lead (say, $5), do you really think customs can tell the difference? They open the package, see a chunk of metal, and go "okie dokey". Yes, sometimes they'll whip out an XRP gun and double-check the alloy, but not for a completely random & arbitrary 4-ounce package.

This will happen for every. single. product.

They got rid of the de minimis exemption. Now every package needs to pay duty.

They may not inspect the package but they still have to collect duty on it.

I live in Canada where our de minimis exemption is like $20. Generally when a package comes to in it is help at the border where a broker certifies it for customs. Below $20 there's no broker.

Now you need brokers etc for every single package. Def more paperwork even if they keep the same inspection ratio.

Sure when you courier stuff into Canada but when it’s through the postal service, duty & sales tax collection is at the discretion of customs.

Customs used to check everything and tax/duty any parcel over $20 until ~2011 or so.

Not sure if it was because of cutbacks, rationalization (it’s a lot of paperwork to collect a couple bucks even with their, at the time, $6.95 fee), or a part of their reinvention as gun carrying “law enforcement” and consistent tax collection being beneath them.

There's still more paperwork though. Canada Post cites a $9.95 handling fee on international packages over $20.

I'm not saying US customs will inspect everything. My point is on $800 packages they're moving from a very low level of scrutiny to some scrutiny and at scale that matters. They'll need to add staff to handle the new process and make the new process.

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/support/articl...

Trump and Elon apparently don't know how to do anything without first blowing it up.

It's divide and conquer tactics. They are not interested in continuity or a smoothly functioning economy. They want chaos and panic because they can exploit it.

The problem is they've already threatened most of their allies. In divide and conquer the goal is supposed to be to divide your enemies, not divide yourself from your allies. As it is their enemies and allies now have good reason to work together.

If you assume they are both compromised by Russia and China(which they are), then all of their actions make much more sense by treating our allies as enemies because they are enemies of Russia and China.

I wasn't thinking IR terms. I think they're perfectly willing to crash the US economy in order to consolidate domestic power, even if it causes an overall loss for the US.

The sticking point isn't the value of the tax, it's having to individually generate the paperwork for each shipment.

Customs could just… not.

It’s at their discretion, just like someone bringing in more than their exemption of beer and deciding not not to charge duty.

Alternate framing: "A 100-year-old thing you could do that Trump is trying to tax, also without getting permission from Congress."

maybe this is the payoff that Bezos gets for toeing the line

The most likely reason is because shipments below a certain value were not being inspected and this was a loophole that allowed China to undermine the US by shipping fentanyl ingredients. My guess is that the postal service needs time to resolve this issue, and are choosing to stop processing these packages for now.

The other possible reasons are to impose tariffs on shipments below the low value threshold, to disrupt the Chinese economy which is currently weak, to discourage consumption of Chinese products, or to use as a negotiation tool in the current push to reset foreign policies.

This is like when Mexico imports synthetic ammonia from China, but synthesizes TNT in Mexico and smuggles it to the United States, but American politicians say that China exports TNT. The funny thing is that TNT is a seriously illegal product in China.

Surely the tariff/trade debate. The question is which side pulled this particular trigger? Yes, it could be Trump. But it could also be Xi, seeing that Trump just got cold feet vs. Mexico and thinking he could get ahead of things and force a concession.

Folks, this is why you don't engage in brinksmanship at this scale. It gets out of hand really quickly. I await the coming economic crisis (I mean, the stock market was already primed for a correction) with resigned exasperation.

If it was China pulling the trigger, USPS wouldn't say "we are suspending acceptance of inbound parcels". It's pretty clear this is a US action.

Don't underestimate the pettiness of this administration.

What the fuck does this even mean? Is it agreeing with me, arguing I am wrong, or simply stating something related/orthogonal?

Mind the F-bomb's, this ain't a TISM concert mate.

It is simply stating that

if China was stopping parcels bound for the US

then the current US admin might be petty enough to pretend that they are the ones stopping incoming parcels from China to appear in control.

This doesn't seem likely, but the sentiment is reasonable .. the current crowd do seem exceptionally petty.

I agree that their aggression wasn't needed, but while this isn't a concert it is a grown up discussion space where we can see the word "fuck", spelled more than the first letter, without fainting!

[flagged]

Are you complaining that I failed to "avoid general tangents" or something? Because I don't believe swearing is against the guidelines... (and I agreed with your criticism of the swearing used by the person you initially replied to)

Or China pulled the plug and this is just PR? Meh. I don't think anything's going to be "clear" here. Brinksmanship is literally a policy based on uncertainty and fear.

Might it be to cut down on fentinal shipments? China is where most of it comes from, not that you would know that if you listen to Trump go on about Canada.

No. The ingredients ship from China and India to Mexico, then the finished product comes over the border. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg93nn1e6go

and drugs

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edit: there's why and there's why. Drugs is the answer you sell

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