I have been doing mail order for about 20 years now. Most of what I sell is small, handmade items made from polymer clay and they mostly go to the US. Some of that is because the US is the largest English speaking market on the internet. Some of it is because Canada and the US, historically, have had some fairly generous trade exemptions so it was often cheaper and easier to send stuff to Texas than it was to send it to Ontario.
There’s always quirks but mostly it’s worked.
On August 29th, the Trump administration will be ending an important item that facilitates purchases for Americans and shipping for international vendors like me. The de minimis exemption establishes an $800 US line that allows packages to enter the US with minimal processing and duty free. After the 29th that will end. When I began selling online the amount was $200 but I believe Trump raised it in his first term. The exemption increase incurred before Trump so I cannot blame him for that one.
We can argue about the amount of the exemption – the US has a very high one. In Canada it’s about $20 CAD after which we can be assessed duties and sales taxes by whoever brokers our packages across the border. It makes items coming in potentially costly but it does make it a little more fair as incoming parcels are taxed similarly to domestic purchases.
The big issue becomes the weird tariffs that will be assessed. There is a remarkable lack of specificity at the moment and amounts of $80 to $200 per PARCEL are being tossed around. Or the amount of tariff your nation rolled the dice and got assigned. It may also be impacted by trade agreements currently in place but that hasn’t stopped the current US admin from dancing all over them so far.
Or it may be nothing when Trump decides that he doesn’t feel like it after all.
If the de minimis exemption does end and the tariffs come into effect there is a good chance that the diminished resources (thanks DOGE) left to handle border shipments and tax assessments will be bogged down for a while and orders will be stuck As a result I’ll be pausing orders to the US on August 18 until we get an idea of how items will be handled and if online platforms and shippers will allow us some method to pre-charge fees to Americans.
I feel like we are all playing very stupid games and we will all win very stupid prizes.
