In the cite provided by @Horatius the status of Australia Post is given as halting transit shipping to the US last week. Impacting parcel and post movements for countries that used Australia as a bypass to get deliveries into the United States.
The Australia Post position has been upgraded to the immediate suspension of most parcel post movements to US. It will continue shipping letters and documents to the US, along with packages that are declared as gifts and are worth less than $US100 (USD153).
If 45/47 destruction of the ingress & egress of world commerce and harmony extends to disrupting the 20th not-quite-annual SDMB Shot Glass Exchange, there will be hell to pay.
And I just saw a post over on reddit, from an Australian guy who used to have a small business making wallets, that he mostly sold by mail to US customers. “Used to have”, because this is making it impossible for him to send his products to his customers any more. The added costs of tariffs and non-postal shipping just wipes out his market.
“An Aussie grifter making money through avoiding American taxes on goods that should be produced here? America produces the most beautiful leather in the world, you know. Beautiful. So soft and pliable, folks. The best in the world. Really.
Fuck 'im.”
I don’t know if anyone cares, but here’s an update - the seller has refused to refund any money. They said they delivered the product as ordered and the tariffs don’t involve them and are between him and his government. The seller also pointed out they had to pay for shipping both to the US and back and that his original payment was sufficient to cover those costs.
Yep. And coworker said he isn’t going to even try to file a credit card dispute as he sees it from the seller’s perspective now, and is just chalking it up to a bit of an expensive lesson.
To be clear, it’s the postal services of those countries that are stopping shipping to the US. If you really need something you can get it via a private service such as DHL. I just see on their website that they claim to be an expert in handling tariff issues. At more expense, of course.
I live in Switzerland, which is not part of the EU. For me, Swiss post is the easiest to deal with. I get an email telling me I have to pay the import tax. I sign in, pay the tax, and then they deliver the package. Easy peasy. Just did that last week with a package from Austria. I wasn’t even in the country when I got the email and paid the import tax.
DHL is second best. They do know what they are doing, but because I don’t have an account with them, they first try to deliver, and then leave a note to arrange pick up. I have to go to their nearest shipping location to pay the fees and get the package. Fortunately their office is close to work.
UPS? Annoying. If I’m lucky, I’ll get an email, and then I can tell them which pick-up location I want them to deliver to, since I won’t be home. And then I have to trek to the pick-up location. It’s better than it used to be, as they partnered with a grocery chain.
During lockdown, we kept cash at the door, because the Post only took cash. Paying online is easier.
Some years ago, we were in Scotland and had the store ship 4 bottles of scotch to our home. That meant that we didn’t pay the UK taxes, had to pay shipping, and then paid Swiss taxes.
Shipper didn’t provide enough information for customs, so I had to provide the invoice to customs so I could pay the taxes.
Companies should know how to provide the correct information for shipping internationally so that customs is happy.
It seems like the issue, at least for the immediate term, is not that the non-US shippers and companies (including their postal services) don’t know how to do it, as much as the primary companies responsible for delivering shipments of foreign products to U.S. households (U.S. Postal Service, UPS, FedEx) largely haven’t had to collect (and calculate) duties on small deliveries before, and U.S. consumers aren’t accustomed to having to make those payments upon delivery.
The fact that the percentage on those tariffs/duties, and what is/isn’t subject to them, keeps changing, doesn’t help.
What is the reason for non-US national postal services to do that? I understand there will be huge capacity problems with customs processing after a parcel has arrived in the US, but that would be a problem for the USPS not the originating postal services. It would make sense for the USPS to temporarily refuse accepting foreign parcels, but the news as I read it frames it as a decision on the originating parcel services’ part.
That seems to be correct for Australia Post at least. In news articles they say that if they accept parcels to the US with what was yesterday’s correct duties, but which have changed overnight, then the recipient country can refuse acceptance. There is also an obligation on refusal for the initial carrier (Australia Post) to return them to the sender. Australia Post could refuse to do that, which would leave them in the US in an unregulated storage limbo, and after a time deem them as unclaimed post.
While duties and charges change all the time, outside Bizarro World they are well-advertised in advance and you know they come into effect on X date, and anything still in transit posted before then counts as valid.
My annoyance may comes with resolving a single EBay purchase for a few bucks, but for others its entire commercial livelihoods being compromised by this moron.
It seems to me the USPS was expert in handling the tariff issue also. It was due and someone has to pay for it. The only thing I can envision DHL and the like doing differently is adding the cost to the shipping and collecting it up front from the shipper who would, of course, add that to the purchaser’s cost.
There’s an added benefit there. This would likely be the only way to drive home to the magaflatearhers that the American consumers, they, are the ones paying the tariffs, not the foreign governments.
I’m confused - why would USPS be experts in handling the tariff issue? Until now, packages worth less than $800 were exempt from tariffs and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if not a single package valued over $800 was going to USPS rather than DHL or some other privae service. Even if they have to collect tariffs on some packages , it’s one thing to do it occasionally and something diffrent to do it on lamost every package. COD is something that exists. It’s not used very often - I had one item shipped to me COD and that was over 40 years ago. Imagine if every commercial package being shipped from another country was sent COD - how long do you think you’d be waiting on line to pay and get your package? I don’t see why it would be any better with tariffs.
Australia Post (and other services) can’t just send parcels to its counterparts at the USPS and hope for the best.
US Customs and Border Protection regulations are that any applicable duties on a shipment are to be collected, remitted and paid to CBP before the goods arrive.
Of course the tariff due is assessed at the time of entry, which given 45/47 fibberty gibbertry on the specifics may differ to what was assessed at the time of despatch.
And if the duty paid is less than the CBP assessment then the goods are impounded until the balance is made good. And if the duty paid is more than the CBP assessment then you can bet there is no infrastructure to reimburse the sender any overbilling.
Which allows them to maintain that the exporter pays the tariff.
The US consumer merely pays the full landed value of the imported goods, plus a margin.
This is the problem - omeone has to pay the tariff at the border. If the tariff is not prepaid (why would the sender do that?) then the carrier would have to do that to collect the money at the door from the receiver… and if the receiver fails to pay? Then presumably the carrier ends up with the parcela and all the legwork for trying to sell it to recover the tariff they paid.
I have fond memories from Canada here of receiving notices from customs brokers (mailed) for duty payable before they release a shipment, back when everything ahd duty. The item would sit in a bonded warehouse (I assume) at the border, and would be allowed out to be delivered once I had paid the duty and the custom broker’s handling fee. (Custom broker is a private business. Some like Purolator had their own such business). Quite often this added more than 50% to a minor purchase, back when everything ahd duty. (ah yes, IIRC 11.4% on computer parts) Because almost everything was dutiable(?) it was a common thing and part of things being shipped into Canada. Also, when done by mail with money orders or certified cheques, a decent turnaround delay.
I presume such businesses disappeared for shippers for USA small customers with the advent of the $800 exemption and likely will take a while to get going again.
You probably aren’t wrong, but as with all of the industries which have largely left the U.S., and which these policies were ostensibly created to encourage businesses to make those products here once more: given the unpredictability and continual changes to these new tariffs, how likely are U.S. businesspeople going to be willing to invest in developing such businesses again, to address something that could go away tomorrow if Trump changes his mind?
I presume there are still bonded customs warehouses for larger value goods. So unless Fed-Ex etc. got out of the high value shipment business when the $800 limit came along, they have some of the infrastructure necessary. I can see where the Post Office might not be configured to hold goods at the border. Plus, the Customs process probably does not want to have to track every postal parcel to ensure it is eventally paid up.