Tag Archives: DHL

NBC News: New tariff rules bring ‘maximum chaos’ as surprise charges hit consumers

Posted on by
Reply

The bills are sudden and jarring: $1,400 for a computer part from Germany, $620 for an aluminum case from Sweden and $1,041 for handbags from Spain.

Some U.S. shoppers say they are being hit with surprise charges from international shipping carriers as the exemption on import duties for items under $800 expires as a part of President Donald Trump’s tariff push.

That’s leading to some frustration and confusion as shoppers and shippers both try to navigate a new reality for anybody ordering goods from abroad.

“It’s maximum chaos,” said Nick Baker, co-lead of the trade and customs practice at Kroll, a firm that advises freight carriers.

Thomas Andrews, who runs a business in upstate New York restoring vintage computers from the 1980s and 1990s, said he was shocked to receive a tariff bill from UPS for approximately $1,400 on a part worth $750. He said he assumed there must have been a mistake.

“That’s extortion,” Andrews said.

Late Friday, a representative for UPS told Andrews that the initial charge was indeed incorrect: The tariff bill should have only been for about $110. But it was too late: Andrews had already refused shipment to avoid paying the charge. Soon after learning about the corrected charge, he realized UPS had already begun sending the item back to Germany.

The final annoyance, Andrews said: He’s being charged for the return shipping — about $50.

In a statement, UPS said it has solutions available to merchants designed to navigate the new environment. It did not address the customer-billing situation.

On Aug. 29, for the first time in nearly a century, small-dollar items coming into the U.S. — also called de minimis goods — began facing import duties. That means even small, personal orders now face the sizable tariffs placed on U.S. trading partners. While a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found many of Trump’s duties unconstitutional, they remain in effect while Trump appeals the case to the Supreme Court.

To comply with the new de minimis rules, a wave of countries have halted shipments to the U.S. That’s caused postal traffic into the U.S. to decline by some 80%, according to a United Nations agency.

But many orders are still flowing. And since the new de minimis rule began taking effect, social media platforms have been filled with accounts of U.S. customers receiving shock bills from major shippers like DHL, FedEx and UPS, having received no notice about the charges from the foreign merchant they’d ordered from.

The shippers, in turn, are being inundated with messages from customers disputing the charges, along with return-to-sender requests as the customers refuse shipments to avoid having to pay the bills.

A representative for DHL said the firm “is committed to supporting customers through the recent tariff changes and ensuring their shipments are managed efficiently.”

“We encourage customers to take note of the shipping policies of the brands they shop with and to also remember that tariffs are payable to the U.S. government,” it said.

The Trump administration has heralded the billions in revenues the tariffs are bringing in — and in the case of the new de minimis rule, argued the change is essential to halting the flow of small-sized illicit drug packages and drug ingredients. In a statement posted the day the new de minimis rules took effect, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the logistics industry “has already adapted to the changes with minimal interruption.”

“This change has been months in the making, and we are fully prepared to implement it,” said Susan S. Thomas, acting executive assistant commissioner for CBP’s Office of Trade. “Foreign carriers and postal operators were given clear timelines, detailed guidance, and multiple options to comply. The only thing ending on August 29 is the pathway that has been used by criminals to exploit America’s borders.”

Baker said foreign merchants are obligated to provide information to the shipper about the classification of the item, which is key to the tariff calculation — but from a regulatory perspective, the customer, as the importer of record, is ultimately responsible for the accuracy of that information.

But many people are still getting caught off guard.

After receiving a tariff bill for $620 on a $300 aluminum computer case from Sweden, Robert Wang decided to turn the shipment away.

A software engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area, Wang said he placed his order Aug. 22 with Louqe, a high-end Swedish merchant. More than a week later, he received notice from UPS about the bill.

“Confusion transitioned into a late-night panic,” Wang said, as he frantically researched the situation. Eventually UPS confirmed he’d been charged the 200% tariff Trump has slapped on certain aluminum goods.

Wang said he tried to reach out to Louqe about the charge, but did not hear back. The company did not respond to a request for comment from NBC News.

Baker said many foreign businesses that rely on U.S. customers now face the dilemma of eating the tariff cost — assuming they are properly accounting for it in the first place — or passing it on to their customers, which could scare off business. Many merchants abroad have posted to social media to alert U.S. customers that they are suspending shipments there.

Some U.S. small businesses are also paying a price. A day after receiving a shipment from Spain for handbags he said were worth about $600, Herm Narciso said he and his wife, who run a brick-and-mortar shop in Dunedin, Florida, that resells goods from Europe, got a tariff invoice for $1,041.44 from DHL.

“We can’t understand how it’s possible to assess us with that level of tariffs,” Narciso said.

They said that they plan to file a dispute, but that the response could take two to four weeks. Narciso is worried their shop won’t survive the recent changes if they start getting similar bills going forward.

“This last quarter is probably going to tank us,” Narciso said. “The margins on this type of business are slim to begin with.”

He added: “It just doesn’t feel like the American way to me.”

New tariff rules bring ‘maximum chaos’ as surprise charges hit consumers
The end of the de minimis exemption is wreaking havoc on U.S. consumers, small businesses and major carriers.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/surprise-tariff-bills-de-minimis-rcna229375

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Market Watch: Trump closes the ‘de minimis’ shipping loophole. Etsy and eBay shares have tumbled.

Posted on by
Reply

‘De minimis’ exemption for shipments worth $800 or less now has ended

Shares of Etsy Inc. and eBay Inc. have been down sharply over the past week, with analysts pinning the moves on the Trump administration’s closure of a trade loophole on Friday.

The “de minimis” exemption has made it possible for shipments worth $800 or less to avoid tariffs and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol scrutiny. It was ended in May for shipments from China, hurting e-commerce companies Shein and PDD Holdings Inc.’s (-1.34%) Temu, and the loophole now has gone away for all other countries, as well.

President Donald Trump rolled out an executive order targeting de minimis treatment on July 30, specifying that the exemption would end at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time Friday.

Trump’s order is “removing a key channel for low-value cross-border shipments,” Cantor analysts said in a report, and Etsy  (-1.43%), eBay (-1.70%) and Shopify (SHOP -0.06%) “likely have notable direct exposure.” They noted that Etsy and eBay have underperformed the Nasdaq Composite Index (-1.15%)  over the past week. As of Thursday’s close, Etsy shares are down 14% over the past five trading sessions, while eBay has dropped 6% and Shopify is down 1%. The Nasdaq is up 1% over the same period.

“Over the medium term, supply diversification from domestic sellers should mitigate the impact on demand,” the Cantor analysts wrote.

Etsy has offered a guide to its sellers as the de minimis exemption comes to an end, promising to “continue to share updates over the next few months that make it easier to facilitate cross-border transactions and incorporate the cost of tariffs into your shop operations.” The chief executive for eBay, Jamie Iannone, said during an earnings call on July 30 that the company is “not immune to the increased costs from tariffs” but believes it is “relatively resilient from that perspective, more so than others.”

The overall impact to the U.S. economy of eliminating the loophole is “likely to be limited,” Evercore ISI analysts said in a note. Shipments claiming the de minimis exemption were valued at $65 billion in the past fiscal year, amounting to around 2% of total U.S. imports.

While postal carriers for a number of countries have announced they’re temporarily suspending shipments to the U.S. due to operational uncertainty around the new policy, the Evercore analysts noted that Customs and Border Patrol data show that more than 90% of de minimis packages are carried by private express carriers and logistics providers, who are “not indicating any disruption when the policy takes effect.”

“The move will have an impact on some consumers who will now bear at least a share of tariffs as well as the higher administrative costs associated with processing smaller packages for tariff collection,” the Evercore analysts said. They noted that a recent study found that both high- and low-income households have taken advantage of the de minimis exemption, but that “low-income households benefit disproportionately as a share of their income.”

In addition, Evercore’s team noted that all existing tariffs now will apply to packages under $800, except during a six-month transition period when there will be an option of paying either a percentage rate equal to the country-specific tariff or a flat fee ranging from $80 to $200 that scales with the country’s tariff rate.

Peter Navarro, Trump’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, predicted on Thursday afternoon that ending the de minimis loophole “will save thousands of American lives by restricting the flow of narcotics and other dangerous and prohibited items, add up to $10 billion a year in tariff revenues to our Treasury, create thousands of jobs and defend against billions of dollars more lost in counterfeiting, piracy and intellectual-property theft.”

Navarro also criticized foreign postal carriers that have suspended shipments to the U.S.

“Foreign post offices need to get their act together when it comes to monitoring and policing the use of international mail for smuggling and tariff-evasion purposes,” the Trump adviser told reporters during a briefing. “We are going to help them do that, but at this point, they are vastly underperforming express carriers like FedEx (-0.29%), DHL (-0.36%) and UPS (+0.24%) .”

The Alliance for American Manufacturing is among the organizations praising Trump’s move.

“Closure of the de minimis loophole is an important step forward, but there’s still more work to be done in leveling the playing field for U.S. manufacturers,” AAM President Scott Paul said in a statement. He said the loophole hurt American manufacturers and was “exposing American consumers to illegal, counterfeit and toxic products.”

Trump closes ‘de minimis’ shipping loophole. Etsy and eBay shares have tumbled.
The “de minimis” exemption for shipments worth $800 has ended.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-is-closing-a-shipping-loophole-shares-in-etsy-and-ebay-are-tumbling-baffd57f