Tag Archives: Japan

CNN: End of an era: Billions of packages of ‘cheap’ goods shipped to the US are now subject to steep tariffs

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A big change to all the “cheap goods” Americans order just went into effect.

For nearly a century, low-value packages of goods from abroad have entered the United States duty free, thanks to what’s known as the “de minimis rule,” which as of 2015 has applied to packages worth less than $800.

The loophole has reshaped the way countless Americans shop, enabling many small businesses globally to sell goods to US consumers with relative ease and allowing, in particular, ultra-low-cost Chinese e-commerce sites like Shein, Temu and AliExpress to sell everything from clothing to furniture to electronics directly to American shoppers, escaping many duties in place for packages exceeding the $800 threshold.

But those days are over. As of one minute past midnight Eastern Time, all imported goods — regardless of their value — are now subject to 10% to 50% tariff rates, depending on their country of origin. (In certain cases, they could face a flat fee of $80 to $200, but only for the next six months.)

A headache for delivery services

Ahead of the expiration of the de minimis rule, a slew of delivery services across Europe, as well as Japan, Australia, Taiwan and Mexico suspended deliveries to the United States, citing logistical compliance challenges.

International shipper UPS, meanwhile, said in a statement to CNN Thursday: “We stand ready for the new changes and do not anticipate any backlogs or delays.”

DHL, which suspended service for standard parcel shipments from Germany but is continuing to ship international packages to the United States from all other countries it serves, told CNN that shipments “may experience delays during the transitional period as all parties adjust to the changes in tariff policy and regulation.”

The United States Postal Service and FedEx declined to comment on whether customers should anticipate delays.

“Our systems are fully programmed and equipped to support the seamless implementation of these changes. CBP has prepared extensively for this transition and stands ready with a comprehensive strategy, having provided clear and timely guidance to supply chain partners, including foreign postal operators, carriers, and qualified third parties to ensure compliance with the new rules.

Susan Thomas, the acting executive assistant commissioner for Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Trade, told CNN in a statement that the agency’s systems “are fully programmed and equipped to support the seamless implementation of these changes.”

“CBP has prepared extensively for this transition and stands ready with a comprehensive strategy, having provided clear and timely guidance to supply chain partners, including foreign postal operators, carriers, and qualified third parties to ensure compliance with the new rules,” she said.

A potential benefit for some American small businesses

While some small businesses, like some individual consumers, have benefited from the de minimis exemption by purchasing goods duty-free, the end of the exemption may benefit some, too.

For Steve Raderstorf, co-owner of Scrub Identity, which sells scrubs and other medical apparel at two stores located in Indianapolis, the tariff change will “level the playing field” for him and, he believes, other small business owners, he said.

A 2023 report by Coalition for a Prosperous America, a group that advocates for US producers and manufacturers, estimates that e-commerce giants like Amazon and Walmart took in hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue in 2022 through their networks of third-party sellers who took advantage of the loophole.

Raderstorf said almost all the goods he sells are imported. But as a small business, he doesn’t have the ability to set up a third-party network to tap into the exemption. Instead, his imported goods are all subject to applicable tariffs.

Additionally, many of the foreign manufacturers from whom he purchases goods in bulk in order to get a better price have benefited from de minimis by setting up sites to sell directly to people who could have otherwise shopped at his stores.

With de minimis gone, he feels small businesses have a better chance to compete more fairly with mega retailers and also support their local communities more.

“When somebody comes to my door and they want me to support the local football team or baseball team, I have money to do that then, and then it gets back into the community,” he told CNN. “When it goes to China, it never, ever stays in the United States — it’s gone for good.”

Since the de minimis exemption was closed for China and Hong Kong, CBP has seen packages that would have otherwise qualified for duty-free status go down from an average of 4 million a day to 1 million, White House officials told reporters Thursday.

Raderstorf is empathetic to Americans who are concerned about the increased cost of goods — but at the same time, he’s hopeful it’s “going to push them back out into their communities to meet their local retailers.”

End of an era: Billions of packages of ‘cheap’ goods shipped to the US are now subject to steep tariffs | CNN Business
A big change to all the “cheap goods” Americans order just went into effect.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/29/business/end-of-an-era-billions-of-packages-of-cheap-goods-shipped-to-the-us-are-now-subject-to-steep-tariffs

Bloomberg: Bessent Warns of US ‘Embarrassment’ If Tariffs Ruled Illegal

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Trump cabinet officials told a federal appeals court that ruling president’s global tariffs illegal would seriously harm US foreign policy, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warning of “dangerous diplomatic embarrassment.”

The administration on Friday filed statements by Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. The court is expected to decide soon whether President Donald Trump exceeded his authority to impose tariffs under a 1977 emergency powers law.

Bessent, Lutnick and Rubio’s statements were filed in support of a request that any ruling against the administration be immediately put on hold until the US Supreme Court issues a final decision. Failing to do so would have “devastating and dire consequences,” Lutnick said.

During July 31 oral arguments before the Federal Circuit, the administration’s claims of broad tariff power were met with skepticism, suggesting the judges might side with separate challenges filed by a group of small businesses and a coalition of Democratic-led states. Friday’s filing seems to suggest the administration is worried about precisely that outcome.

The cabinet secretaries said that a ruling invalidating tariffs would undo months of negotiations with the European Union, Japan, South Korea and other nations. Bessent said the president’s ability to quickly impose tariffs had prevented other nation’s from responding in kind.

“Suspending the effectiveness of the tariffs would expose the United States to the risk of retaliation by other countries based on a perception that the United States lacks the capacity to respond rapidly to retaliation,” the Treasury secretary said.

Trump’s tariffs were ruled illegal in May by the US Court of International Trade, which found that tariff power belongs to Congress and Trump improperly claimed authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. That decision was put on hold by the Federal Circuit for the appeal, allowing the administration to continue threatening tariffs during the negotiations cited by Bessent, Lutnick and Rubio.

Lutnick said tariffs had brought foreign powers to the negotiating table “in ways that no other president came close to achieving” and told the court that an adverse ruling would “send a signal to the world that the United States lacks the resolve to defend its own economic and national security.”

Rubio said Trump used his IEEPA authority in connection with highly sensitive negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine and claimed there could be “severe consequences for ongoing peace negotiations and human rights abuses” if the court ruled against the administration.

Dumb asses deserve to be embarassed. Just one more “correction” for our most incompetent and corrupt government ever!!!

https://archive.is/6g0D5#selection-1615.0-1654.0

Slingshot News: ‘We’re Getting Rid Of Them’: Trump Touts His Mass Layoffs At The Department Of Veterans Affairs During Nonsensical Remarks At Bill Signing Event

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‘We’re Getting Rid Of Them’: Trump Touts His Mass Layoffs At The Department Of Veterans Affairs During Nonsensical Remarks At Bill Signing Event
During his remarks at a bill signing event at the White House last month, President Trump touted his mass layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Trump stated, “We’re getting rid of them.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/we-re-getting-rid-of-them-trump-touts-his-mass-layoffs-at-the-department-of-veterans-affairs-during-nonsensical-remarks-at-bill-signing-event/vi-AA1Lsxa0

Motoring USA: Tariffs Bring Japanese Automakers to Breaking Point

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Tariffs Bring Japanese Automakers to Breaking Point
Tariffs placed on the US auto industry has Japanese car makers at breaking point. Will things improve and will we see manufacturers such as Toyota go out of business? Here’s the reality of the situation.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/tariffs-bring-japanese-automakers-to-breaking-point/vi-AA1LaNYE

Raw Story: ‘Nuts!’ Ex-GOP lawmaker tees off after Trump calls himself a ‘war hero’

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A former member of Congress unloaded on CNN on Tuesday evening after the president referred to himself as a “war hero” during a radio interview.

During an interview with conservative radio host Mark Levin, President Donald Trump described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war hero” for his actions in Gaza. Trump added that he should also be known as a war hero because he approved of the bombing mission that destroyed Iran’s nuclear facility.

“Nobody cares, but I am too,” Trump said, referring to himself as a hero. “I sent those planes.”

Adam Kinzinger, a former Air National Guard officer, discussed Trump’s comments on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.”

“This is nuts!” Kinzinger, who represented Illinois in Congress as a Republican for more than a decade, shouted. “This is nuts, and his people are going to find a way to justify this.”

“Listen, when they were putting out something honoring the Army’s 250th anniversary, they put out a picture of Donald Trump in his military academy uniform,” he continued. “Which has nothing to do with the military except that they drill you.”

“This is nuts. He’s not a war hero,” Kinzinger said. “You can like what he’s done. That’s fine. I hope he gets a resolution in Ukraine, but to put himself on the same level as people who have actually gone out and served this country, not claimed bone spurs, is an offense to anybody who’s served.”

Watch the entire clip by clicking here.

‘Nuts!’ Ex-GOP lawmaker tees off after Trump calls himself a ‘war hero’

https://www.rawstory.com/adam-kinzinger-2673902589

Some Ojibwe signs, books could be removed as feds evaluate national parks

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National Park Service employees had to report any signs or books that could be interpreted as anti-American.

Federal officials are reviewing whether to remove books and signs with historic references to the harsh treatment of Native Americans from Minnesota’s national park sites.

An executive order issued by President Donald Trump in March required employees at all national park sites to audit and report to the Department of the Interior any material that negatively portrayed Americans, past or present, by July 18.

In Minnesota, staff reported informational signs and books that referenced forced relocations, starvation and treaty violations of Native American tribes living in Minnesota and Wisconsin, including Ojibwe, Yankton Sioux and Dakota, according to groups that work with the parks and staffers who did not want to talk for attribution for fear of losing their jobs.

“That’s very worrisome,” said Chris Goepfert, the associate director of the National Parks Conservation Association.

Goepfert was shocked last month when she stumbled across a sign at the visitors center at Voyageurs National Park in International Falls asking the public’s help in identifying anti-American material.

Similar signs were posted at other national park sites, including the Mississippi River and Recreation Area and Pipestone National Monument.

They asked visitors to alert the government “of any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans” in support of Trump’s executive order called Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.

Interior officials recently told park superintendents in a meeting that any reported materials deemed to be “inappropriate” must be covered up or removed by Sept. 18.

“Our national parks are about our history, and so for them to specifically target [and consider] removing some of our American stories, is[troubling]‚” Goepfert said.

The reported material is now under review, according to a statement on Monday from the National Park Service.

“As we carry out this directive, we are also manually reviewing and evaluating public feedback we’ve received,” the statement said. “This effort reinforces our commitment to telling the full and accurate story of our nation’s past and is not about rewriting our past.”

Tony Drews fears the possible removal of Ojibwe material.

“It’s horrible. … I don’t have enough vocabulary to properly express how this makes me feel. These are just huge steps backwards,” said the Ojibwe language teacher and founder of Nashke Native Games, a company that makes board games to teach children, plus park and museum staff the Ojibwe language.

The games are used at Voyageurs National Park and discussions are underway for their adoption at the Grand Portage National Monument.

Drews said he was inspired to teach children about their Ojibwe culture and language because of what happened to his grandmother.

“As a child, she was sent to [an Indian boarding school] and forced not to learn her language” and to give up her culture, he said.

“It feels like the momentum had been going well for our people, but this? It’s tragic,” he said, adding that he plans to reach out to U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar for help.

Librarians, historians and University of Minnesota data experts started a “Save our signs” campaign to document monuments, signs, books and websites to preserve any historic information that is removed. To date, the public has submitted to the campaign more than 3,000 photos nationwide, including 92 from Minnesota.

Nationwide, the lists submitted from parks to the Department of Interior for possible removal included scores of plaques and books referencing George Washington owning slaves and Franklin Roosevelt’s polio, according to the Washington Post. One book reported was “Wives, Slaves, and Servant Girls: Advertisements for Female Runaways in American Newspapers 1770-1783.”

Park employees in Minnesota and Wisconsin said they did not know what the Interior Department intended to do with the submitted lists or who would be evaluating their appropriateness.

At Voyageurs National Park in International Falls, employees who submitted three signs and 11 books to top officials only know that eventually “there’s going to be some sort of critique,” said Park Ranger Kate Severson.

“It’s bizarre, because all of our history books talk about people, and people are a mixed bag,“ she said. ”Most of our history is centered around the voyagers and the Ojibwe. And the Ojibwe have not been treated extremely well by American politicians.”

Because of this past treatment, several of the Voyageurs’ books include critiques of Minnesota politicians, which meant the staff had to report them, Severson said. They are now waiting to hear back whether they must remove them from shelves.

Ted Gostomski — a biologist at the research center in Ashland, Wis., who performs fish and wildlife studies for all of the national parks and Mississippi River and Recreation areas in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan — said top park officials not only asked for employees’ and visitors’ reporting help, but were also scanning websites to look for potentially offensive language.

Gostomski, who had nothing to report at his research lab, said the exercise is confusing.

“You can’t rewrite history that way and you can’t be afraid to acknowledge and work to change things that happened in the past to make sure they don’t happen again,” he said.

Yet the Park Service said in its statement any material that disproportionately emphasizes negative aspects of U.S. history “without acknowledging broader context or national progress” can also misrepresent history.

The administration’s goal, the statement said, is to “foster honest, respectful storytelling that educates visitors while honoring the complexity of our nation’s shared journey.”

Some Ojibwe signs, books could be removed as feds evaluate national parks
National Park Service employees had to report any signs or books that could be interpreted as anti-American.

https://www.startribune.com/ojibwe-national-parks-voyageur-mississippi-pipestone-executive-order-evaluating-signs-books/601448172

Business Insider: Automakers are starting to reveal how much Trump’s tariffs are costing them

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  • Carmakers are tallying up an eye-watering bill from Trump’s tariffs.
  • Jeep and Ram owner Stellantis said it expected the levies on imported vehicles to cost it around $1.4 billion this year.
  • General Motors, Tesla, and VW have also reported big tariff hits in earnings in the past few weeks.

The auto industry is still trying to unravel a tangled tariff web, and the bill just keeps getting bigger.

Jeep and Ram owner Stellantis became the latest automaker to forecast a heavy hit from Trump’s tariffs on imported vehicles on Tuesday.

The Chrysler maker said that it expected tariffs to cost it around €1.2 billion ($1.4 billion) in the second half of this year, after a €300 million impact in the first half of 2025.

Stellantis, which builds Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep models in its factories in Canada and Mexico, has been hit hard by the Trump administration’s 25% tariff on vehicles and car parts imported into the US.

Other automakers are also feeling the pain. General Motors, which builds models for the US market in Korea, Mexico, and Canada, said last week that the tariffs had cut $1.1 billion off its profits in the last quarter.

CEO Mary Barra said that GM was working to reduce its tariff exposure and build up its US manufacturing presence, but the company warned that the worst was still to come. GM estimated that the tariffs could cost it between $4 and $5 billion this year.

Trump’s recent trade deals have slashed the tariffs on importing cars from Japan and Europe to the US from 25% to 15%, but manufacturers still have to deal with a hodgepodge of import restrictions and fees.

The 25% tax on automobile parts means that even carmakers who build their cars in the US face a serious tariff headache.

Tesla, which has factories in California and Texas but still uses some imported components, told investors last week it incurred a tariff-related cost of $300 million in the previous quarter, with CFO Vaibhav Taneja warning that costs are likely to increase in the coming months.

European manufacturer VW also said last week it had suffered a $1.1 billion tariff-related hit in the first half of this year, while Swedish carmaker Volvo took a $1.2 billion impairment charge in part due to the escalating cost of the levies.

Experts and analysts have warned that many of the costs facing automakers will be passed on to US consumers in the form of higher car prices and fewer models.

A study by the Center for Automotive Research published in April found that the 25% tariffs on imported cars and auto parts would hike the cost of vehicles produced in the US by over $4,000 and imported vehicles by nearly $9,000.

Automakers are starting to reveal how much Trump’s tariffs are costing them
Jeep and Ram owner Stellantis became the latest automaker to forecast a heavy hit from Trump’s tariffs on imported vehicles on Tuesday.

https://www.businessinsider.com/automakers-are-revealing-how-much-trumps-tariffs-are-costing-them-2025-7

Alternet: Trump official brutally mocked after saying he was ‘not going to tolerate’ sick Americans

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Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump’s Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, declared that the administration will no longer “tolerate” what he called a culture that makes it “easy to be sick in America.” Framing childhood illness as a failure of parenting and physical activity rather than medical need, Oz linked obesity to national security and warned that industries would be forced to cooperate—or face government retaliation.

Oz—often called a conspiracy theorist who has been widely criticized for promoting “quack” products—appeared to endorse an authoritarian vision of public health, suggesting that under Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Americans would no longer be allowed to remain “sick” without consequences, and threatened industry with demands to either cooperate or face retribution.

He also railed against what he called the “over-medicalization” of American society—particularly among children—but failed to distinguish between conditions driven by behavior and those rooted in biology or beyond individual control.

“You’re diagnosing problems that probably should be dealt with with the parents,” he told Fox News Business, referring to children’s health, “or by going out and playing, or just dealing with issues and teaching kids how to mental resilience [sic].”

He warned of risk factors that “cause an obesity epidemic that now prevents three quarters of young men from entering the military,” a questionable claim, and said that this “crisis” is “rolling up towards the older ages.”

“There’s a reason we’re twice as obese as [our] European counterpart countries, we’re ten times more obese than Japan: we’ve made it easy to be sick in America. And this president and this Secretary of Health, Bobby Kennedy, they’re not going to tolerate it anymore,” Oz declared.

Warning that he and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, “are the tip of the spear,” he threatened “to make sure that we get industry to work with us, or we’ll be coming after them.”

Dr. Oz has a history of linking healthcare policy to politics.

In 2022, during his failed senatorial campaign, Oz said he wanted abortion to be between a woman, her doctors, and local political leaders.

More recently, Oz has said Americans must “earn the right” to be on Medicaid, and said current Medicaid users should “prove you matter.”

Critics, meanwhile, blasted Oz’s latest remarks.

California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom responded, telling Oz, “You just stripped 17 million people of their healthcare.”

Dr. Rachel Bedard, an internist, geriatrician, and palliative care physician, wrote: “Stop being sick, Americans. They aren’t gonna tolerate it anymore.”

Anthony M. Hopper, who teaches healthcare administration, noted, “You know … We would be a lot healthier (in the future) if we spent more money on medical research.”

Retired professor MA Rasmussen wrote: “So you guys are OK with the gutting of the EPA, an agency created to protect us from polluted air & water & the Labor Department which enforces worker safety rules? I guess so. You’re all into blaming the individual rather than corporations or agribusiness or bad public policy.”

Watch the video … at this link.

Trump official brutally mocked after saying he was ‘not going to tolerate’ sick Americans

https://www.alternet.org/trump-official-sick-americans

Alternet: Trump just broke the law — again

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After the United States bombed Iran’s three nuclear facilities on Sunday, US President Donald Trump said its objective was a “stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror”.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed this justification, saying:

The president authorised a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interest posed by the Iranian nuclear program and the collective self-defenze of our troops and our ally Israel.

Is this a legitimate justification for a state to launch an attack on another?

I believe, looking at the evidence, it is not.

Under the UN Charter, there are two ways in which a state can lawfully use force against another state:

・the UN Security Council authorizes force in exceptional circumstances to restore or maintain international peace and security under Chapter 7

・the right of self defense when a state is attacked by another, as outlined in Article 51.

On the first point, there was no UN Security Council authorization for either Israel or the US to launch an attack on Iran to maintain international peace and security. The security council has long been concerned about Iran’s nuclear program and adopted a series of resolutions related to it. However, none of those resolutions authorized the use of military force.

With regard to self defence, this right is activated if there is an armed attack against a nation. And there’s no evidence of any recent Iranian attacks on the US.

Trump just broke the law — again

https://www.alternet.org/trump-international-courts

Newsweek: ICE detains green card-holder returning from visit to son in US Air Force

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Victor Avila, a 66-year-old green card holder who has lived in the United States since he was a teenager, was detained in May by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at San Francisco International Airport after returning from a trip to visit his son, a U.S. Air Force servicemember stationed in Japan, according to local reports and a GoFundMe page.

…

Avila was detained May 7 at San Francisco International Airport after returning from Japan. The 66-year-old has been a legal permanent resident since 1967, when he immigrated to the United States from Mexico. He was returning from the trip with his wife, who had not been detained.

According to a GoFundMe page, his wife, four children and six grandchildren are all U.S. citizens, including his son, who serves in the U.S. Air Force.

A longtime resident of San Diego, Avila has worked as a legal assistant at the workers’ compensation law firm Kiwan & Chambers APC for over a decade.

…

Avila’s daughter, Carina Mejia, told local outlet ABC 10 News that her father was pulled over in 2009 and arrested for a DUI and drug possession misdemeanor. He served his time and paid the fines for the misdemeanors. She said he has been able to renew his green card two times since that arrest.

ICE detains green card-holder returning from visit to son in US Air Force
Victor Avila, a green card holder for more than 50 years, was arrested after returning from a visit to his son, a U.S. Air Force servicemember stationed in Japan.

https://www.newsweek.com/ice-detains-green-card-holder-returning-visit-son-us-air-force-2087397