Why are many shippers still getting everything through? Are they using tech like Flexport to handle the complexity?
Is this a situation where if you abide by the letter of the law without tech it doesn’t work, where if you use software and/or route through nations that already have no tariff deals with US you get your items through?
I just bought (last week) an EEG kit from Europe to US for personal sleep studies. It has similar metals that you indicate. There was no issue in my shipper getting it through. There was no tariff added. There was no certificate of analysis.
> For example, importers must declare the exact amount of steel, copper, and aluminum in products, with a 100% tariff applied to these materials. This makes little sense—PCBs, for instance, contain copper traces, but the quantity is nearly impossible to estimate.
I think if the shipper can't determine the amount of copper in their products, then neither can customs.
Well shit. I pre-ordered a risc-v motherboard from DeepComputing (Hong Kong) for my framework laptop that is supposed to ship next month. They'll likely run into these exact same issues.
> importers must declare the exact amount of steel, copper, and aluminum in products, with a 100% tariff applied to these materials. This makes little sense—PCBs, for instance, contain copper traces, but the quantity is nearly impossible to estimate.
Wow this administration is f**ing batshit insane. I thought the tariffs would be on raw metals, not anything at all that happens to contain them.
The fact that tariffs exist, is sufficient marker of insanity in this day and age. Why carve out a validation relating to the degree of transformation of raw material.
I worked in German automotive for a good decade and there this was not an unusual requirement. Measuring steel, copper and aluminum to the gram is not that hard. Where it gets tricky and where the German automotive companies were super strict even 15 years ago is rare earth metals.
Sounds like a non issue in this case, we are talking about grams of metal? You are engineers, provide an estimation, pay the tariffs on 2 grams of metals and move on.
Is certificate of analysis anything more than a pdf made with word with your signature on it?
You expected this to make sense. The goal is to destroy the US economy. Full stop. There aren’t many lenses that make sense anymore but this one? This one has made sense for quite some time now. Reexamining the behavior of the people in power using this lens should assist you in understanding the world we find ourselves in.
This whole tariff circus boils down to regulatory capture by manufacturers at the 10+-figure market cap scale. Olimex (and other small and medium businesses) can't reasonably be expected to calculate the exact material composition of their products (much less their suppliers' products); the only people who can are on the scale of Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and Google whose volumes can amortize the cost of doing so on a per-product basis (and who have probably already done that analysis as part of their process control).
I got bit by this one - ordered a few days ago, thinking there might not be much time left - guess I was more right than I realized. (they're offering refunds but I'll probably let them keep the money - not like it's their fault)
I buy a veterinary grade vaccine for my dog from Great Britain. I'm sure it contains a few micrograms of aluminum salts (those RFK Jr. doesn't like) as a stabilizer. And now I need to pay a 100% tariff on the aluminum?
> otherwise they assume the entire PCB consists of copper, aluminum, and steel, and charge a 100% tariff on the whole product.
Do I understand this correctly that if I have a 1kg product that costs $1000... the US is trying to charge me a $1000 tariff on at most $10 [1] worth of metal?
[1] Copper is the most expensive of those metals at roughly $10/kg
I wonder if you could weigh the FR4 material, weigh the final result, and subtract them to get the weight of everything else? It would be better than being taxed on the entire weight.
My mother-in-law shipped us homemade jam from Slovakia. It's been stuck in customs for 3 weeks. The agents must be working diligently to assay the canning jar lids.
Disgusting, these morons have already destroyed the job market and made groceries near unaffordable. They’re on track to crash the stock market and now will destroy our global trade.
No matter what the pretext, it should be completely clear that the only real goal of this is to damage the US economy.
Just as the real effect of a vaccine ban will be to damage US health, and the real effect of dismantling government funded R&D will be to damage US education and competitiveness.
I have no doubt some people believe patriotism is involved, and some large companies will get exemptions.
But I also have no doubt these decisions aren't being made for the long-term benefit of the US as a whole. Or even most of it. Or even those parts of it which are currently exempt.
This is Brexit++, sponsored by the same people, with similar - but much worse - lasting effects.
Serious question: Do you ever actually ship things to the US using La Poste? I've NEVER shipped things to the US using La Poste, although the fact that I work in finance might have something to do with it.
FYI, poste italiane - Italian mail service - stopped shipping to USA too today or yesterday, if I had to guess other eu mail services have already followed or will follow soon
We're gradually becoming a pariah state. Foreigners are afraid to visit, citizens are afraid to move freely, and more and more companies are going to stop doing business with us because of these erratic, incompetently implemented tariffs. Not to mention the daily threats of martial law.
Being a US citizen used to be a perk, not a liability.
US citizenship is a big liability for citizens living abroad. Our banks have to report how much money we have to an American criminal monitor. The fines of doing it improperly are so draconian that some financial institutions have refused to work with Americans for many years already. We have to file and sometimes even pay taxes on money earned abroad. We are practically forbidden from investing in many products that someone living abroad would typically do.
how do situations like this typically progress in high tariff countries? I know for instance Brazil has a high tariff rate on certain imports. Does a black market typically spring up to fill the gap? It's hard to imagine that can happen here, no matter how bad the tariffs got.
Economy is the realm of unseen connections and unexpected consequences. If USA's tariffs look obviously troublesome, I'm probably just seeing the tip of the shark fin of this black swan as it swims under the water. I have this feeling in my bones that this is gonna bring the mother of all recessions, and not only to USA.
Deutsche Post/DHL Standard shipping to the US from Germany is off for all commercial goods as well as gifts worth more than $100 (85 EUR); DHL Express is still accepting shipments, but is far more expensive - going from 27 EUR for a 2kg parcel to 82 EUR.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 75.5 ms ] threadIs this a situation where if you abide by the letter of the law without tech it doesn’t work, where if you use software and/or route through nations that already have no tariff deals with US you get your items through?
I just bought (last week) an EEG kit from Europe to US for personal sleep studies. It has similar metals that you indicate. There was no issue in my shipper getting it through. There was no tariff added. There was no certificate of analysis.
I think if the shipper can't determine the amount of copper in their products, then neither can customs.
Wow this administration is f**ing batshit insane. I thought the tariffs would be on raw metals, not anything at all that happens to contain them.
Is certificate of analysis anything more than a pdf made with word with your signature on it?
You're allowed to say "fucking".
Not just manufacturers but retailers/distributors too.
Want to be a small time importer/retailer and do international sales online? Good luck!
"Suspensions including from Australia and Europe come after Donald Trump removed a rule exempting parcels worth less than US$800 from his tariffs."
(For some reason this isn't showing the full article to me in Firefox with uBlock Origin. There's more info here that works with that setup - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/aug/25/postal-serv...).
I got bit by this one - ordered a few days ago, thinking there might not be much time left - guess I was more right than I realized. (they're offering refunds but I'll probably let them keep the money - not like it's their fault)
Is there even a dog?
Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States (Japan Post)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45016517
Do I understand this correctly that if I have a 1kg product that costs $1000... the US is trying to charge me a $1000 tariff on at most $10 [1] worth of metal?
[1] Copper is the most expensive of those metals at roughly $10/kg
Just as the real effect of a vaccine ban will be to damage US health, and the real effect of dismantling government funded R&D will be to damage US education and competitiveness.
I have no doubt some people believe patriotism is involved, and some large companies will get exemptions.
But I also have no doubt these decisions aren't being made for the long-term benefit of the US as a whole. Or even most of it. Or even those parts of it which are currently exempt.
This is Brexit++, sponsored by the same people, with similar - but much worse - lasting effects.
Your only option now is to use FedEx or UPS which cost a significant amount more.
[1] https://www.post.ch/en/about-us/media/press-releases/2025/us...
[1] https://www.nrk.no/urix/posten-stopper-sendinger-til-usa-1.1...
Being a US citizen used to be a perk, not a liability.
Dimensions: 85 mm x 56 mm
Area: 4760 mm^2 or 7.38 in^2
Copper: 4 x 1oz layers
Copper Weight: 0.205 oz = 0.013lb
Copper price: 0.013 * $4.50/lb = $0.0585
And that doesn't include the copper removed by etching. So if they paid a 6c tariff on each raspberry pi board, they'd be overpaying.
Can they generate a certificate claiming each board contains no more than this amount of copper, overpay the tariff by a few pennies, and carry on?