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Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

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Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#281

Post by Scoundreller »

nluken wrote: post #271
bigyabai wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and we wind up with pollution, additional landfill, and relentless consumerism that's harmful to the country But that happens regardless of whether or not you import manufactured goods, doesn't it?

You're not going to get new clothing for TEMU prices without the de minimis exception. In theory, the higher price of these goods will decrease the amount they're purchased and lessen impact of pollution. As others in this thread point out, though, there are other casualties of this change.

Temu should already be paying the tariffs on China-origin goods. De minims for China origin stuff ended May 2nd.

Unless they’re sending it all via China Post and US CBP is letting it pass through anyway. Anecdotally, most of their stuff in major cities is arriving by Gig couriers or from US warehouses (ie: not postal imports) = tariffs applied.

Where Temu and big retailers win the game is that they can structure it to exclude last-mile delivery/logistic cost in their tariff calculations, and that’s a lot of the price.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#282

Post by Rebelgecko »

schmookeeg wrote: post #211
bsimpson wrote: post #198

There was chatter about this in one of the NYC subreddits over the weekend. Apparently ending the de minimus exemption is closing the grey market for e.g. sunscreen; places that used to sell Japanese sunscreens on American shelves no longer are. There's a frustratingly long list of goods that the US decided to put requirements on in previous generations, and then stopped maintaining. Sunscreen is one; other countries…

Ignoring the massive political elephant that exists in all of this stuff -- isn't this a good trigger, as demand for the "updated standards" products will force these companies (or resellers of these products) to either validate their products for sale in the US or force the US to recognize these EU standards? I suppose an immediate counterpoint is that the US Consumer seems unwilling to clamor for high-quality produ…

For sunscreen, they just make a separate less effective version for the US market. The market of people who would say "well, I won't buy sunscreen at all unless it's as good as foreign variants at blocking UV-A rays" is pretty small.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#283

Post by yibg »

pessimizer wrote: post #239
cheema33 wrote: post #34

This needs to be repeated. Tariffs are a tax on ordinary citizens. Unlike regular taxes, tariffs are not progressive and therefore benefit the wealthy. These are the sort of things the poor and middle class voted for. To make the rich, richer. And then turn around and complain that rich are getting richer and they are getting poorer.

> This needs to be repeated. Tariffs are a tax on ordinary citizens. Unlike regular taxes, tariffs are not progressive and therefore benefit the wealthy. No, people need to stop repeating it, because it's an extremely stupid anti-tax argument. Tariffs are meant to onshore production and raise wages. Telling half the story is simply lying. You might as well complain about buying food because it costs money. You might…

Details matter. Tariffs CAN promote domestic manufacturing and raise wages. But a few things need to be true for that to happen:

1. Targeted specific tariffs aimed at industries we want to protect. Not a flat across the board tariffs on all / most things coming in. The latter IS just a tax on the consumer.

2. Other policies aimed at promoting the said industries. e.g. CHIPS act.

3. Consistency, predictability and stability of policies. No one is going to move manufacturing to the US if they aren't sure if tariffs are going up or down or will get removed entirely on short notice at a whim.

We have none of the above.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#284

Post by arghwhat »

Gud wrote: post #148
arghwhat wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tariffs like this is a market regulation that the people pays for. It doesn't "benefit the wealthy" because it's not progressive, it benefits the wealthy that have investments in the tariffed industry by distorting the market to their advantage instead of having to be competitive on a level playing field. The rest of the wealthy are equally annoyed by the tariffs as everyone else, possibly more so as they see their i…

There is no "level playing field" when you are competing with literal sweatshops though. Frankly tariffs get a bad rep because of from who and how they are implemented but can absolutely serve a purpose.

The shops you're thinking of are less of a sweat shop than, say, Amazon in the US. Theres no good wages, but factory jobs don't really pay well anywhere.

They're mostly just a lot more efficient at scale, with a few plants managing close to the whole worlds supply of random shit. Almost all microwaves by all international brands are made by the same Chinese company, all prismatic LiFePo battery cells come out of one of two factories in China, and so forth. Economy of scale on turbo steroids.

Imagine having to compete with Ford by making cars in a garage. Now imagine Ford as the garage shop vs. these factories.

The sweat shops you're thinking of is stuff like clothes manufacturing in other third world countries than the usual suspect. That shit is nasty - breathing and handling acid with naked skin nasty.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#285

Post by arghwhat »

dale_huevo wrote: post #150
arghwhat wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tariffs like this is a market regulation that the people pays for. It doesn't "benefit the wealthy" because it's not progressive, it benefits the wealthy that have investments in the tariffed industry by distorting the market to their advantage instead of having to be competitive on a level playing field. The rest of the wealthy are equally annoyed by the tariffs as everyone else, possibly more so as they see their i…

>it benefits the wealthy that have investments in the tariffed industry If only they invested in venture-backed mass surveillance apps instead

Oh they do, and you probably have several of them installed...

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#286

Post by yibg »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #162
CamperBob2 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations don't pay taxes. They pass them on to their customers: us. And applying tariffs to tools and raw materials when you're supposed to be trying to bring manufacturing back to your country is... well, let's just say any government stupid enough to do that isn't likely to improve things in any other respect.

Invisible hand forces prices down. If tarrifs on imported goods are high then people choose non imported goods (which might be substitutes for goods which can’t be made in America) as there are no tarrifs. They are dangerous though. If country A stops selling to US it sells cheaper to other countries. It also stops importing from the US (and chooses subsidies). Overall everyone loses out - at least in theory, as ever…

If non imported goods were price competitive with imported goods then tariffs won't be needed in the first place. Tariff's are there for artificially force imported good to be more expensive so the previous more expensive domestically produced products become price competitive.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#287

Post by stouset »

folsom wrote: post #224
dudefeliciano wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a ridiculous attempt at sanewashing. When has Trump or anyone in the GOP EVER stated that they want to end consumerism?

https://apnews.com/article/trump-two-dolls-tariffs-toys-7b0e...

Trump effectively saying "deal with it, you'll live" is not even remotely evidence that the primary goal is ending rampant consumerism.

Just… stop.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#288

Post by Retric »

ethbr1 wrote: post #235
Retric wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food production isn’t some homogeneous entity, it might make sense to subsidize some level of staples but direct subsidies are more transparent and can be more easily limited. But, obviously industry doesn’t want the government feeding through to stop simply because the’ve scaled vastly past domestic consumption. Similarly, military procurement can subsidize relevant industries without impacting the wider economy. In…

I think that under-appreciates the slippery slope of political leverage. There's a reason Iowa is so hell-bent on keeping their primaries first. Without explicitly and financially tying subsidy-fueled gains to modernization efforts, market participants begin to consider the subsidies as business as usual, plan around them, and get lazy.* It removes a primary incentive to maintain pace with global technology improveme…

That’s a big part of why it happens, but every industry wants subsidies the idealized place of “farming” in the American public’s perception make this significantly easier.

That helps explain why chips, cars, airlines, banking etc get subsidized but PVC pipes don’t.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#289

Post by jemmyw »

folsom wrote: post #152
graeme wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Tariffs are flat taxes on corporations The OP said tariffs are not progressive taxes. You are agreeing with them while believing you are disagreeing. Further tariffs are not specific to corporations. Individuals pay them. Small business pay them. Large businesses pay them.

Then you would agree that all corporate taxes are not progressive and are eventually paid by all consumers thus all corporate taxes should be abolished.

Corporate taxes are paid on profit. In theory they should not change consumer pricing in a perfect market. They can be seen as a tool to encourage companies to spend more on R&D and capital investment rather than returning profit.

Re: Temporary suspension of acceptance of mail to the United States

#290

Post by Scoundreller »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #274
Scoundreller wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the issue for postal systems. In every country in the world, you could send a package by post and the receiving country’s customs will assess duty/taxes/admin fees and charge the recipient as the default procedure. As of later this week, the US will not do that procedure (or allegedly charge some absurd flat rate, like $50-$200 on even a $1 package). Sending postal systems don’t want to deal with the aftermat…

In the EU a flat fee was introduced to deal with the workload and a system to send predeclared items. The difference is that it was communicated well in advance without any uncertainty. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Import_One-Stop_Shop

It’s not a flat fee though, it’s the VAT rate and an admin fee if you don’t go the IOSS route.

When I sent an unpaid item, I think I paid 5 EUR/pkg for processing to France customs on top of VAT because I paid online after France assessed it, but before delivery.

US is saying any parcel arriving without duty paid would be charged $80-$200 flat fee solely depending on which tariff rate applies. IE, from a “bad” country, a $1 item could have a $200 fee. Or as low as a bargain or $80.

They’re basically treating every parcel like it’s work $800 item.

https://www.valueaddedresource.net/trump-ends-de-minimis-exe...

Anecdotally, many Canadian shippers have reported that China item containing parcels have just been getting returned to sender. No American has received a bill at the door for postal imports.

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