Mail Carriers Pause US Deliveries as Tariff Shift Sows Confusion | Hacker News Reader

Mail Carriers Pause US Deliveries as Tariff Shift Sows Confusion

bloomberg.com

161 pointsvoxadam118 comments

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.

This is why New Zealand's police recruiting ad[0] a few years back was so brilliant. They used humor to intentionally de-select this "warrior cop" mentality, and emphasize public service instead.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9psILoYmCc

The dutch army did something similar in one of their ads. They had a whole series of ads where they showed a short skit illustrating some property they do or don't want in the army. Then the ad shows two checkboxes, "suitable" / "unsuitable", with one of them getting colored in. This[0] specific one from that series is quite explicitly showing they don't want people who like "playing" with guns too much.

There's a compilation here[1] in case anyone wants to see some more. Most of them don't require any language and are decently funny.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-qyjkj7Vj0 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiqFysi883Y

Surely you want to select for warrior cops especially in a place like the USA to be able to handle things like school shooters and violent meth heads?

Is it better to hire a diplomat and make them a warrior or hire a warrior and make them a diplomat? When lives are on the line id choose the later tbh.

As Uvalde showed us, in extreme situations we need professional, competent cops, not (wannabe) "warriors."

The warrior cop mentality is the worst combination: it teaches police to be simultaneously afraid of their own shadows and belligerent and trigger-happy. The all-too-predictable result is that they escalate and shoot innocent people in nonthreatening situations, and then fail to lay down fire when it actually is life-or-death.

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-warrior-cop-ethos-and-the-s...

https://archive.is/824JT

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.)

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.

And what’s worse is that the tariffs are going to bring in real revenue in the near term. Perhaps the government can wait a year before trying to earmark that money, but by the time the next president gets elected, that income will be expected. There is the opportunity to shift the tariffs into certain products (like a wealth based consumer tax - ie a 100% import tariff on your super yacht) but that will take time to work out the details for.

I feel sorry for my American friends and family but at the end of the day, actions have consequences. Wishing them all a speedy recovery!

>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.

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.

Overnight delivery in Toronto for CAD$6: https://www.senditcourier.ca/rates

But yeah, I know what you mean.

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.

I responded to "we are going to have to build up our internal stuff to survive" which isn't reasonable in the medium term let alone the short term.

So what you're saying is that Trump is... a tree-hugging environmentalist by dint of being a de-growther?

Him making an anti consumption policy would fall under the "broken clock is right twice a day" situation.

Arbitrary policies can be found to align with arbitrary ones if you inspect on a different metric than is used to create them.

In this case I would assume from what has been released isolation via destabilization is the goal. (Not major destabilization mind you just "ruffling feathers" enough that we naturally pull away)

The fact that destabilization results in reduced consumption is a coincidence.

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.

With a China Post/HK postmark?

Or some other courier or with a USPS postmark? Because that would indicate it got commercially brokered with all duties assessed and paid by someone.

Yeah China Post. It's a combination of factors, including something called the UPU, de minimis, and subsidies on both sides. The USPS loses money on every item sent.

Most small trinkets use something called ePacket, check its pricing here - https://jingsourcing.com/shipping-from-china-to-us-cost/

It would cost me as an American 4x that amount to send something to even my neighbor via USPS.

I wouldn't say I'm a tariff fan, but US sellers have been getting ripped off for years, and few people even know or care.

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.

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.

Yeah, and then they circle-file your address and any future shipments to it.

so far, so good

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.

Are you sure it is really FedEx? Definitely too old for tariffs. Probably too old for any claim against you. I’ve seen a lot of shipping related scams in the last two years.

Oh it's definitely real, because I recognize the product I bought, and it all matches up perfectly to my records. It even has an old phone number on the letter (but current at the time), which is probably why they haven't called me.

I vaguely remember paying the duties and customs in cash to the driver, but I don't know for sure. This was likely the first international purchase I ever made that had a separate duties charge, and I remember being surprised by how much it was when it was delivered.

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.

Not just within. This is a Russia play. We're in the 2025 version of the manchurian candidate.

Ugh, I know. My sister works for the California government and I warned her in 2019, just follow the money - he’s been in debt to them ever since the Moscow Tower never materialized. He has long had ties to Russian mob.

https://archive.ph/20170106174148/https://www.washingtonpost...

This idiot is going to send this country into such economic convulsions that he’ll get himself removed.

Hey at least it will reduce consumerism in the US. Will probably send us straight to a recession though

I literally just ordered something from the UK and it was shipped a few days ago. Ugh.

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.

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

Or the more concise "Keep them punching down so they don't look up"

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.

It's niche, but this is devastating the miniature wargaming industry, which is heavily based on small firms in the UK.

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.

> 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.

Which store do you use for the wool sweaters?

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.

My brother, can I introduce you to https://www.faribaultmill.com/collections/wool-blankets

Where do they get their wool from? A lot of things are made in the US but depend on imported materials. That's where tariffs will hit.

edit: https://www.faribaultmill.com/pages/faq

>> "Selection: The woolen process begins with the selection of the highest quality imported and domestic fleeces. Each bail is sampled and checked for quality, providing the base of making the finest woolen products."

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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