US Import Duties?

I'm quite certain nobody thought the process through and there's probably no direction as to theshold. Customs may suddenly be overwhelmed by tens of thousands of packages arriving every day and they may not have any discretion in collecting duties that cost more to collect than they return.

[Resisting the urge to make further political comments].

<Mod Edit: Removed existing unnecessary political comments not related to the topic at hand - Matt>

Nigel Goodwin said:

In the UK there's always been some kind of import duty, plus VAT (Value Added Tax - currently 20%) on imports from outside the EU. However, there's a threshold level below which it doesn't apply, and a small quantity of electronic parts usually falls below the threshold.

For example, the JLC PCB's I've been ordering, the 10 100x100 boards for $2 offer, even including the DHL shipping, falls below the threshold. When I ordered 100 boards, this was above the threshold, so we were charged VAT, plus a charge for collecting the money, and 'perhaps' some kind of import duty as well. I'm not even sure what the threshold is

I presume something similar will apply in the USA, where small amounts aren't worth collecting?.

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It was mentioned in the PS post above. There has always been a 3.7% duty on electronic components and modules in the US. I don't understand why some people have their shorts in a bunch because this non-collected value is now 25% (Correction: was 2.5% and now 35%).

gophert said:

It was mentioned in the PS post above. There has always been a 3.7% duty on electronic components and modules in the US. I don't understand why some people have their shorts in a bunch because this non-collected value is now 25%.

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Why do you think the 25% will be "non-collected"?

The tariff on steel will likely result in the closure of the only remaining nail manufacturer in the US. Perhaps the people employed there have every reason to have their panties in a knot.

Bunnie's blog in the link I posted above clearly shows how the this tariff on parts and components but not finished goods doesn't help the US - it encourages offshoring.

Gophert, you seem to enjoy attaching me. Why don't tou just refrain from commenting on my posts in the future? I will miss your witty remarks and insightful comments....no I won't. So STFU.

After looking more at the application of the tariffs, they seem to be a replacement for corporate taxes. Taxing raw materials but not finished products means the US manufacturers are getting a tax burden that their competitors are not seeing. This is effectively an anti-jobs strategy. Finished iPhones do not get a tarrifs but semiconductors (excluding LEDs) are 35% and LEDs are 20%. I am going to Ask my suppliers to put the parts on the circuit board and put the board in a box - that way I don't pay a tariff. Super easy, I have the upfront work of moving box production off-shore but I save 35% on parts.

JonSea said:

Why do you think the 25% will be "non-collected"?

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Because the 2.5% tariff was not collected on small-value shipments. Have you ever paid 2.5% duty in the past? What makes you think the US Customs suddenly has the capabilities and resources to collect a few dollars on each of the millions of shipments handled by FedEx, UPS, USPS DHL every day?

JonSea said:

Gophert, you seem to enjoy attaching me. Why don't tou just refrain from commenting on my posts in the future? I will miss your witty remarks and insightful comments....no I won't. So STFU.

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STFU? What does that mean? Save the Flying Unicorns?

JonSea said:

Gophert, you seem to enjoy attaching me. Why don't tou just refrain from commenting on my posts in the future?

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What makes you think you are sooo special? Everyone gets the same treatment.

Jon and Gopher, enough with the personal attacks. This is your one and only warning.

gophert said:

After looking more at the application of the tariffs, they seem to be a replacement for corporate taxes. .

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Interesting thought.
Perhaps the government realized that the loss of tax revenue would be larger than expected. Therefore they had to find alternate ways to offset some of the shortfall.

DerStrom8 said:

Jon and Gopher, enough with the personal attacks. This is your one and only warning.

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Read my posts carefully -no personal attacks or vulgarities from me. Everyone is treated the same.

gophert said:

Read my posts carefully -no personal attacks or vulgarities from me. Everyone is treated the same.

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Just because you supposedly treat everyone the same does not mean you are not making personal attacks. I have read your posts carefully and my comment is in direct response to them.

gophert said:

It was mentioned in the PS post above. There has always been a 3.7% duty on electronic components and modules in the US. I don't understand why some people have their shorts in a bunch because this non-collected value is now 25% (Correction: was 2.5% and now 35%).

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The impacts of this "non-collected" duty are starting to be seen. There's plenty of reasons to get "their shorts in a bunch" as this tariff will come out of the pockets of people who use electronic components - as well as many other things. Here is the word from Allied Electronics as of today.

And let's not forget the soybean farmers.
Many invested in expensive agricultural machinery, seeing as they were an insatiable demand for their produce.
Only to find everything coming to a screeching halt.

Digikey's response is a little more open-ended. Their existing stocks of products from China may allow them to weather the storm until/if this trade war nonsense stops, but it's pretty clear at some point, we will be paying this "non-collected" tariff.

This has already impacted a small-scale manufacturer friend of mine - they were hit with a 35% increase in many of their materials and components. That's huge for a startup on the verge of meaning sales of a speciality industrial product. Guess they have every reason to "have their shorts in a bunch"!

JonSea said:

Digikey's response is a little more open-ended. Their existing stocks of products from China may allow them to weather the storm until/if this trade war nonsense stops, but it's pretty clear at some point, we will be paying this "non-collected" tariff.

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That's rather a different matter - the 'non-collected' suggestion refers to small personal imports, under some assumed threshold (as in the UK with VAT) - obviously a large importer like Digikey won't be under any such threshold so will have to pay the import duty.

Gophert's comments were that the 25% tariff was an insignificant issue. Obviously, it's not. Anything purchased from large supply houses will have 25%+ tacked on to the price of many items originating in China (which appears to to be a significant number).
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My original question was and still is how will this affect small orders, like printed circuit boards from China and smalls lots of parts purchased from ebay. Small amounts of duty may well be ignored, but this cannot be said with any certainty at this point in time. The man who is in our White House has proven to be very vindictive, and won't let harm to US citizens interfere with his goal to "punish" China. This has proven to be the case with farmers impacted by the trade war - their suffering is deemed "for the greater good".

Whether or not the duty is collected, these tariffs may impact shipping times as each parcel is inspected for tariff applicability. Will packages shipped by DHL still arrive in a few days, or will they be stuck in customers for days or even weeks?

My original questions still stand and as yet, I have seen no real-world answers. Some suppositions and some unfounded comments about my panties being in a knot for no reason have been made but clearly the tariffs will have impacts on hobbyists and small businesses while affecting large-scale offshore manufacturing not at all. I look forward...fear actually...hearing some real-world experiences about the impacts of these tariffs.

Unfortunately JonSea, this is an out of the ordinary situation and everyone is still a newbie. All I can tell you that the materials procurement organization in my corporation (and we are a significant size corporation) are scared sh!tless on how all this is going to work out.
But as I had already mentioned, we are hiring some con$ultant$, to help us out. These con$ultant$ are of course, out of the reach for small companies like yours.

To these price increases, I just hope it doesn't turn out like the grocery prices did back around 2014. In my area, don't know about other areas, store prices were raised when gas prices raised. Said it was to counter the increase of delivery to the stores. But when they started to drop, the prices stayed the same and never dropped.

https://then.gasbuddy.com/Retail_Price_Chart.aspx

Yes, I am well aware this is an extraordinary situation, and I expect that enforcement will be inconsistent. The people charged with collecting these tariffs are probably none too happy about the situation either.

I'm not asking anybody to look into their crystal ball to tell me what's going to happen nor am I am I asking for speculation about how this unfolds. What I asked is for real-world examples of what happens with this. It was a simple question so I know what to expect if I order a $10 set of standoffs from ebay or $20 of pcbs dorectly from a Chinese manufacturer.

I am wondering what will happen if I order parts from suppliers in the USA, like Digikey.
They are getting these duties tacked on to imports, But is the USA also putting more duties on some of these parts than being exported to Canada.
Possibly I could get charged a Double Duty.