[HN Gopher] US Customs Export Control Says: I'm Screwed
___________________________________________________________________
US Customs Export Control Says: I'm Screwed
Author : exar0815
Score : 170 points
Date : 2021-05-09 11:04 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bigmessowires.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bigmessowires.com)
| gambitown wrote:
| Your package is missing Export Control Classification Number
| (ECCN) [0], duh.
|
| Add a proper ECCN number (such as "EAR99" [1]), according the
| rules and regulations that apply to the specific product you're
| shipping.
|
| FYI, export violations can reach up to $1 million per violation,
| prison for up to 20 years, and administrative penalties.
|
| [0] https://www.shippingsolutions.com/blog/six-basic-steps-
| for-e...
|
| [1] EAR99 is not a free pass:
| https://www.shippingsolutions.com/blog/ear99-isnt-a-free-pas...
| dvdkon wrote:
| This is one of many problems with manufacturing products in the
| western world. Not only is shipping usually much cheaper ~than~
| from China (and you have to get the parts from east Asia
| anyway, most of the time), you also need to deal with a whole
| host of certifications, export restrictions and generally
| convoluted bureaucracy. It sometimes seems that the rules are
| designed to scare off hardware (and other) startups. Basing
| yourself in China you can manufacture cheaper, sidestep most of
| these issues and basically chuck uncertified products with
| shoddy and falsely filled customs labels at customers
| everywhere. If we actually want electronics manufacturing to
| come back, we'll have to sort those problems out, small
| enterprises matter too, not just the ones wealthy enough to
| have this sorted out by sheer brute force.
| tschwimmer wrote:
| I'd argue that it isn't really much less regulated on the
| China export side. There are still a mess of forms and
| certifications you have to get in order to export. The only
| difference is that your manufacturer and origin agent usually
| handle all this stuff for you.
| hervature wrote:
| This is what the author puts in the comments on their site:
|
| Regarding the ECCN information: it's my understanding that by
| writing NOEEI 30.37(a) on the label in the box for
| AES/ITN/Exemption, I'm stating that the items don't require an
| export license or permit and are valued under $2500, so no
| commercial invoice or ECCN numbers should be required. In other
| words, I think what I have included on the form should be OK
| as-is.
| gambitown wrote:
| > so no ECCN numbers should be required.
|
| That's wrong. The classification of each exported item has to
| be declared by the sender. Exemptions should also be declared
| as an ECCN number (there are various ECCN numbers designed
| exactly for that).
|
| Without ECCN the sender fails basic Export Compliance checks.
| otterley wrote:
| Try reaching out to your local Congressperson's office. The
| squeaky wheel gets the grease.
|
| Edit: also, your local Postmaster.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Customs != USPS
| otterley wrote:
| That's where the "congressperson" part comes in.
| arbuge wrote:
| As one of the comments on the original article points out:
|
| "I notice your 'Signature' is a printed string."
|
| First thing that jumped out at me too when I read that label. I
| wonder if that's the reason. As far as I know, an actual
| signature is required there.
| marcinzm wrote:
| If it's a pre-printed computer generated label then all you
| need is the printed name.
| cbmuser wrote:
| I don't know about the US, but that's definitely not allowed
| in Germany.
|
| It _must_ be signed by hand and I'm pretty confident that the
| packages were rejected because of that.
|
| If they aren't rejected by USPS, they _will_ be rejected by
| German customs.
| marcinzm wrote:
| >If they aren't rejected by USPS, they _will_ be rejected
| by German customs.
|
| No they won't be, I've sent many packages to Germany using
| these types of "signatures" with zero issues. This in fact
| how every pre-printed USPS international label looks like
| (ie: Etsy, Pirate Ship, etc, etc.). Please don't make
| absolute statements about things you don't have first hand
| experience with.
| VLM wrote:
| Do you need an EIN on the package label?
|
| https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-1145?language=en_US
|
| Interestingly it seems to be the fault of the Census Bureau
| wanting to provide aggregate economic activity reports rather
| than border patrol themselves. Nothing more fun than watching two
| departments try to "cooperate" which is why you're probably not
| getting much help from Customs.
| purpleidea wrote:
| Maybe they have a crappy algorithm that sees "EMU" and thinks:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu and says "nope, we're not
| touching animals, you need a special form"?
|
| Either way, the lack of transparency is a huge problem. I thought
| the United States had all those guns to prevent the State from
| messing with them? Not sure that seems to have helped here.
|
| Good luck figuring this out! Go to the news media.
| Const-me wrote:
| The envelope says "plastic carrying case and computer memory
| module". Photo of the content there:
| https://www.bigmessowires.com/shop/product/floppy-emu-model-...
|
| I understand how technically that's true. Still, I can see how
| for a non-technical person a PCB with OLED display and buttons
| does not look like a memory module. 99.99% of memory modules sold
| are DIMM or M2 SSD modules. They look very differently from the
| content of the package.
|
| I would try printing slightly more descriptive labels on these
| packages. Maybe "Custom aftermarket replacement part for
| 1979-1983 Macintosh computers"
| maxerickson wrote:
| Based on the price, it is
| https://www.bigmessowires.com/shop/product/mac-rom-inator-ii...
| bombcar wrote:
| I've always included a proforma invoice and an ECCN when sending
| anything international (except letters).
|
| Perhaps some software change happened internally that no longer
| defaults to something, or the clerk isn't allowed to deduce the
| ECCN anymore.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| A freight forwarding service like MyUS.com could be of help here.
|
| First, the customer/recipient can use a freight forwarding
| service to get the stuff shipped to them without the seller
| having to consider export procedure at all; The customer just has
| the seller ship to their US freight forwarding address and then
| the service handles export and reshipment. Freight forwarding
| services are a natural accumulator of export protocol know-how.
| It's their specialization.
|
| Secondly, the freight forwarder might be able to advise on best
| practices. It might be in their interest to raise attention to
| themselves and accumulate good will, as well as to demonstrate
| what particular suffering it is that they alleviate.
|
| There's also a free business idea here: Freight forwarding
| services that handle from-one -to-many shipping. (Most of those
| that I am familiar are from-many-to-one. From many shippers to my
| personal account.)
| dawnerd wrote:
| There's actually quite a few one to many. They're designed
| mostly for cross border distribution (Canada to US where
| they'll truck pallets over the border then drop off at usps in
| bulk).
|
| An example of one: https://www.goessa.com/packaging
| [deleted]
| dominik-2020 wrote:
| Maybe ask a customs broker?
| ineedasername wrote:
| Yes, you have to pay them of course if you use their services,
| but it's also possible you can call one up and get a nice
| person who will take a minute or two & freely tell you if
| there's a current issue they're aware of.
| otterley wrote:
| Also, try reaching out to your local congressperson's office.
| gambiting wrote:
| This is the correct answer if you run a business. Customs
| brokers accept responsibility for making sure the packages go
| through the process successfully and usually have access to
| customer support channels normal mortals don't have.
| Frost1x wrote:
| While I agree, this _shouldn 't_ be the case though. The lack
| of transparency and accountability from a government agency
| is absurd but then again, these values don't seem to matter
| anymore.
|
| This person should be able to get an explanation as to why
| their shipments were declined by customs. It's absurd that
| they have seemingly unquestionable authority from the general
| public. I supposed you could take them to court and figure it
| out, but in most cases, I doubt that's a viable route.
| gambiting wrote:
| Absolutely 1000% agreed. But this parson specifically made
| a blog post basically saying "I run a business, I'm
| screwed, please help". Well, the immediate step would be to
| pay a broker to make sure those packages leave the US
| successfully and be doesn't lose customers. Then he can
| contact his representatives and complain second.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Seems like the same issue would affect any rando cleaning
| out their basement with eBay too.
|
| As a Canadian, I can see why so few Americans want to
| ship internationally. Which is a negative economically.
| kirillzubovsky wrote:
| This story is why I love Hacker News.
| snthd wrote:
| FOIA request?
| fortran77 wrote:
| What's amazing is there's no recourse.
| marcinzm wrote:
| That's pretty much par for course with the USPS. One of the
| selling points of UPS/FedEx is that they have actual proper
| customer service (at least for large accounts).
| Natsu wrote:
| That makes me wonder if shipping it via UPS or similar would
| get them more information?
| 4oh9do wrote:
| One time a USPS delivery person stole my package.
|
| I know this because the tracking information a USPS clerk
| looked up for me showed the delivery person marking the
| package as delivered while being nowhere near the delivery
| address. In fact, nowhere near an address at all. It was
| marked as delivered to a street-intersection which houses a
| vacant field.
|
| The USPS clerk acknowledged this, but said that because there
| were no other complaints about the delivery person that day,
| there was nothing they could do.
|
| So it seems like USPS delivery people are literally allowed
| to steal one item of mail a day.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Maybe he drove off, remembered he had to register your
| package, and then stopped to register it as delivered.
| Later a thief took it from your mailbox?
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| The issue is not with USPS, but with Customs, a wholly
| separate government entity.
| marcinzm wrote:
| The sticker their package got links to the United States
| Postal Inspectors website which indicates this is USPS
| inspectors rather than an unrelated government agency.
|
| https://www.uspis.gov/about/what-we-do
| dvdkon wrote:
| Unless there's some weird hierarchy I'm not aware of,
| that is USP _I_ S, not USPS.
| marcinzm wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Inspec
| tio...
|
| Parent agency: United States Postal Service
| gavinray wrote:
| There's no recourse for anything in the US government or
| justice system.
|
| You just count your losses if you can't figure it out and
| accept it + move on.
|
| If you throw too big a fit things can often wind up being made
| worse for you, out of you being an inconvenience.
|
| Compared to a lot of other places to live, I'm not complaining
| though.
| [deleted]
| thedogeye wrote:
| Tell this guy to call a customs brokerage like flexport.
| Entrepreneurs should focus on making things people want and
| connecting with customers. Turn everything else over to
| specialists with experience and scale. Most of all customs regs.
| jonpurdy wrote:
| As an aside, I've got a ADB Wombat from BMoW and it's just
| awesome. Allows me to easily use my 1993 Apple Adjustable
| Keyboard with my modern Mac.
|
| Edit: forgot to mention that it also works great for using a USB
| mouse or keyboard on older Macs.
| [deleted]
| spdustin wrote:
| What's being shipped? You may not think it's relevant, but if the
| author omits it from their post, they certainly do.
| rriepe wrote:
| Quickly glancing at the list, it seems like it was emus and
| wombats. Highly illegal.
| rssoconnor wrote:
| The image claims the contents are
|
| * plastic carrying case
|
| * computer memory module
| marcinzm wrote:
| It's a blog on a site which sells things and the audience is
| presumably people who buy things on the site rather than
| hackernews:
|
| https://www.bigmessowires.com/shop/
| occamrazor wrote:
| The photo shows a shipment containing a "computer memory
| module".
| [deleted]
| gipp wrote:
| There's a whole column in the table for it, or you could just
| check the shop page. It's electronics components for retro
| computing, basically.
| [deleted]
| newacct583 wrote:
| The site sells a bunch of retrocomputing emulator products.
| It's not at all unlikely that some of this looks like hacking
| or R/E devices and fell afoul of someone's filter (or maybe
| they sell a keylogger or something unsavory that I just didn't
| see).
|
| The author, as others are pointing out, should hire a customs
| broker. This is a licensed professional who knows the process
| (and often the specific employees at the customs office) and
| can get answers to questions that can't be answered in stickers
| on packages.
|
| Or, if there's really a law enforcement angle here, they should
| call a lawyer.
|
| But HN isn't going to provide much help.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Looks like the big item is an "EMU," which is a floppy emulator
| (pretty cool).
|
| If the customs inspector has enough domain knowledge to know
| what a "computer memory module" looks like, and sees one of
| these:
|
| https://www.bigmessowires.com/shop/product/floppy-emu-model-...
|
| They are likely to say "this person is trying to ship a 'not-
| memory-module'. Goodbye, Mr. Bond!"
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| I don't think the trade names you've used in "Contents" are very
| descriptive. Something along the lines of "Hobby Electronics"
| might be more appropriate. I'd also consult a trade expert on
| this but I think spec'ing the origin as US may be part of the
| problem because no doubt there are Chinese components on your
| assemblies. Receiving countries will want to tariff commodities
| based on the actual origin.
| 4oh9do wrote:
| At least they receive their packages back.
|
| Compare that to the eBay Global Shipping Program - where if eBay
| decides that your package violates some opaque rule, neither the
| sender nor the recipient receives the package. eBay keeps it.
| syoc wrote:
| Sounds.. strange. Why would ebay keep the package? What would
| they do with it? Sounds more likely that it's thrown away
| somewhere.
| 4oh9do wrote:
| eBay may keep it, destroy it, or do whatever with it, who
| knows? The key point is that neither seller nor buyer receive
| it.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Had this happen multiple times with nicotine patches, which
| you _are_ allowed to import into Canada.
|
| Eventually gave up and bought from Amazon.com (was cheaper
| than .ca).
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Ugh, eBay. Still hasn't solved ~10 % of buyers blatantly
| abusing "buyer protection" to get stuff for free.
|
| I don't know the current state of GSP but a few years back it
| seemed like it was just a scam betting on customs not
| inspecting ~99 % of packages. GSP claimed to collect duties and
| import taxes (calculated... how exactly? It's not like an
| American seller is providing a TARIC code to eBay). Anyway, if
| the package eventually arrived, you'd notice that there was
| _zero_ documentation attached apart from the usual sticker
| saying that customs didn 't randomly pick this package to
| check. Some people reported that when customs randomly picked
| their fees-supposedly-paid-through-GSP-package, they had to pay
| duties and taxes a second time.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| > Ugh, eBay. Still hasn't solved ~10 % of buyers blatantly
| abusing "buyer protection" to get stuff for free.
|
| Yes they have. They've decided that transferring the expense
| of protecting their own reputation to their sellers is a
| winning business practice.
| atatatat wrote:
| Are they incorrect?
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| It's a market reality, they can employ what I consider to
| be abusive practices like this because enough merchants
| accept it as a cost of doing business. But I wouldn't
| call it "incorrect" exactly. If a merchant wants to
| submit to that, it's a free country (thus far).
| gambiting wrote:
| Surely.........they reimburse both sides for it? Otherwise
| that's just theft or at the absolute minimum fraud. Ebay is
| absolutely free to reject any packages for any reason
| whatsoever, but they should always return them.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| > but they should always return them
|
| Unless you've agreed to allow eBay to dispose of
| "unacceptable" parcels at eBay's discretion.
| ars wrote:
| > Surely.........they reimburse both sides for it?
|
| That sort of sounds like selling something to eBay with extra
| steps. (Although obviously they should just return it,
| although they will probably charge return shipping.)
| dawnerd wrote:
| Yep both parties get reimbursed and sellers get protection
| from negative feedback resulting from it. Funny enough Pitney
| Bowes (the ones actually running GSP) just action off these
| items.
| 4oh9do wrote:
| Even with reimbursement, it is still theft. It's like if I
| buy a bike from you, and the delivery truck driver decides to
| keep the bike for themselves and instead gives me cash and
| drives off, with me having no say in this.
| gambiting wrote:
| Well.........kinda, but he's not stealing from you, he's
| stealing from the delivery company at that point. The
| delivery company accepts responsibility for the parcel when
| they collect it, and the contract usually says that either
| they will deliver the parcel or pay you back X where X is
| agreed beforehand. So if _either_ of those two things
| happen they successfully complete their part of the
| contract. If the driver takes your parcel then it 's up to
| the delivery company to prosecute, not you.
| wongarsu wrote:
| You still own the bike, he is stealing from you. You
| could argue that depending on the circumstances the sell
| still owns the bike and is the one who has his bike
| stolen. But at no point does the delivery company own the
| bike or has the right to sell it
| gambiting wrote:
| That's not true. The second you accept compensation for
| the item posted the delivery company takes ownership of
| the goods and they are free to do with them whatever they
| see fit, including selling them if they are ever found.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The terms linked in my sibling comment expressly say
| otherwise. The title remains with the seller until they
| either deliver it or decide to dispose of it. Which is
| hilarious.
|
| _Transfer of Title. Title to a GSP Item remains with
| your Seller until such time as the GSP Item is
| successfully delivered to you or your consignee, at which
| time title to the GSP Item shall transfer to you or your
| consignee. At no time do eBay (or its affiliates), Pitney
| Bowes (or its affiliates), or the third party logistics
| providers, shipping carriers, customs brokers, freight
| forwarders, or other subcontractors under contract with
| Pitney Bowes take title to a GSP Item._
| maxerickson wrote:
| It really depends on the terms of the contracts involved.
| Section 11 says that they get the title of the item if
| they determine it is undeliverable "for whatever reason":
|
| https://pages.ebay.com/shipping/globalshipping/buyer-
| tnc.htm...
|
| Basically their interest in people continuing to use the
| service is the only reason they have to perform, the
| contract says something to the effect of: ha ha we can do
| nothing if we want.
| jMyles wrote:
| Certainly he's stealing opportunity from you.
|
| Maybe you really needed the bike on the agreed-upon date.
| gambiting wrote:
| If you need compensation for loss of opportunity and loss
| of profit and such, then there are companies which will
| happily accept liability for such for a sufficient
| financial incentive. Regular consumer-grade postage
| services very specifically exclude liability for anything
| outside of the delivery itself.
| henvic wrote:
| I'm sorry for your trouble.
|
| Customs are one of the most harmful things for society in our day
| and age. People in highly developed countries don't notice this
| much. Still, people from poorer countries with high bureaucracy
| and intervention in trade by customs cannot access good and
| cheaper stuff from elsewhere. In the end, a few official
| importers/exporters with good relations with the state apparatus
| plus corrupt customs agents benefit at the cost of the
| impoverished society.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Seems like main issue you have is with corruption, not customs.
| Corruption is bad regardless.
|
| I'm happy our customs is making it harder for people to import
| all kinds of illegal and/or dangerous goods, like weapons and
| assorted chemicals pretending to be medicine or drugs, into our
| country.
| antihero wrote:
| The only thing I really care about for customs is bombs and
| human trafficking. I wish they would focus on those things
| and not just getting in the way of things. Maddening that my
| tax money is spent on preventing me doing stuff.
| sterlind wrote:
| you should also be concerned about pests riding along with
| your fruit, ready to destroy your country's ecosystem.
| there's boring yet legitimate stuff to scan for.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Conversely, cheap international goods can wipe out local
| industry, which can leave people in less developed economies
| permanently impoverished.
| henvic wrote:
| This is a lie. If you live in a rich country you consume
| thousands of different things a day. If you live in a poor
| country and are really poor, you might consume hundreds.
|
| You consume way more than you produce. Don't fall for this
| trap. Otherwise, next thing you'll stop doing business with
| anyone else because it's better to live by your own means.
| gambiting wrote:
| The....what?
|
| If you make a product X and someone imports product X from
| a country where labour is 1/10th of the price, you go bust.
| In a lot of cases countries impose customs duties to
| protect those businesses, because it's better to have a
| working industry than cheap goods.
|
| Which part exactly is a lie?
| henvic wrote:
| Tariffs aren't imposed to protect the population, but
| specific well-connected players who lobby for such
| protections to avoid competition.
| gambiting wrote:
| Well, such a wild accusation requires a source. I can
| name several examples where tariffs were introduced
| specifically to protect local industries, mostly farmers,
| because it would be cheaper to just import foreign apples
| or carrots than locally grown, but obviously if you allow
| that to happen you don't have an apple or carrot growing
| industry next year. You could argue that "rich farm
| owners lobbied politicians to avoid competition" but you
| couldn't be any further from the truth. It was demanded
| by the farmer cooperatives and unions through protests,
| not some wealthy magnates.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Is it more important to serve the farmers or the broad
| population who wants to eat apples and carrots?
| mind-blight wrote:
| It really depends on the context. Focusing only on the
| price a costumer pays as your main metric ignores a lot
| of potentially negative externalities.
|
| One recent example in the US: a lot of small local
| business were suffering because the Chinese government
| was heavily subsidizing shipments to the US. So much so
| that it was cheaper in some places to get a product
| mailed from China than from across the street. The US
| started pushing back with tariffs while appealing too the
| universal postal union postal union. That kept the US
| businesses from going under while the UPU slowly went
| through the process of forcing china to follow their
| rules.
|
| And that's ignoring pollution, all the negatives that
| happen for the whole population when an industry and/or
| small businesses collapse within a country, and other
| negative externalities
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Tariffs are _supposed_ to protect the population.
| dennis_jeeves wrote:
| >Tariffs aren't imposed to protect the population, but
| specific well-connected players who lobby for such
| protections to avoid competition.
|
| henvic, you won't convince the dimwits here, I assure
| you.
| henvic wrote:
| No. They aren't supposed to protect the population. This
| is a lame excuse to implement it without popular revolt.
|
| I was born in Brazil and lived there for most of my life.
| When I was young, it was, in practical terms, forbidden
| to import computers and cars to the country to protect
| the "nascent" national industry. I know very well from a
| close point of view how tariffs can make everyone's lives
| miserable.
|
| My father had to import his first computers illegally.
| Knock-offs IBM PCs bought in Paraguay. Imagine in the
| early 80s to travel from NY to San Francisco to smuggle
| computers over the border because a mad man in the state
| decided you cannot trade goods with someone who lives far
| away. This is what customs is about.
|
| Protectionism is not only dumb, it's vile! Pure evil!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7njIlZ2xYq0
| magicalhippo wrote:
| For me, banning the import of legal goods is something
| else.
|
| Here in Norway you're allowed to import certain cheeses
| that are also produced locally, but you'll have to pay a
| 300% or so duty on them. So it's strongly discouraged but
| not banned. Similar for other food stuff.
|
| And as I mentioned in another comment, there's quotas
| given for a lot of these food items, that exempts duty
| for a certain amount of imported goods. This way the
| government can give strong protection for the amount
| produced locally, while meeting consumer demand via
| imports. I feel this is a good compromise.
|
| Textiles is another example which have a 12% duty, a
| relatively minor protection. And that's about the extent
| of our protectionism.
| henvic wrote:
| No. A good compromise is leaving business between A and B
| if you are C. If you produce the best textile in the
| world and charge only a penny, but someone would prefer
| to pay a pound for something awful from overseas, they
| should have the liberty to do so. It's none of your
| business how other people trade.
| astrange wrote:
| Tariffs don't protect local businesses, they charge local
| customers more in order to punish foreign companies.
| Besides being a tax on your own population, they have bad
| effects on other local businesses both because you didn't
| predict their foreign inputs and because they're always
| followed by retaliation on your own exports.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Tariffs don't protect local businesses, they charge
| local customers more in order to punish foreign
| companies.
|
| That statement literally makes no sense whatsoever. No
| offence. Tariffs are paid by the importing entities, so
| the idea is to make it more expensive to import foreign
| goods than locally produced ones.
|
| I am aware that some countries like the US use tariffs
| punitively but that's like using a hammer to make an
| omelette.
| Y_Y wrote:
| If you buy something directly from another country then
| you are both a local customer and an importing entity. I
| bought some electronics from Hong Kong recently and had
| to pay 40% again when it entered the EU. There aren't any
| local businesses who make these things.
| gambiting wrote:
| If you were importing from HK to EU I'm not aware of many
| tariffs that would apply on electronics, I guess you just
| paid VAT and customs duty, and neither is what I'm
| talking about here.
| rascul wrote:
| > Tariffs are paid by the importing entities
|
| Seems those entities would likely raise prices to cover
| increased tariffs.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Thus making the prices of their local competitors more
| attractive. Ergo, protecting local _producers_.
|
| Notably, not to protect businesses in general - if your
| business is importing/retailing exclusively foreign
| goods, then tariffs are explicitly designed to
| disadvantage you versus someone retailing local products.
| clairity wrote:
| only if there is positive price elasticity, and that
| depends on market dynamics (price is a function of both
| supply and demand).
|
| for instance, if there is a local alternative that's 10%
| more expensive, you might have that 10% leeway available
| to you to increase prices, but not if demand drops
| sharply (negative price elasticity) because substitutes
| exist or the good isn't as essential as it seemed.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Norway has import duties on apples a few months a year.
| Tell me how that's not to protect the income of our local
| apple farmers.
|
| We have import duties on beef, with quotas given
| throughout the year based on how large local production
| is versus how much local demand is. Tell me how this is
| not done to protect local meat producers.
|
| I could list many more such examples from the
| agricultural sector.
| astrange wrote:
| You are punishing people who want to eat apples and beef
| for the crime of being able to pay less for it.
|
| This doesn't protect businesses who want to sell apple
| and beef based products for less money using foreign raw
| inputs.
|
| And what retaliation are you getting in exchange for
| raising these tariffs?
| gambiting wrote:
| >>You are punishing people who want to eat apples and
| beef for the crime of being able to pay less for it.
|
| That's an incredibly weird way of looking at it.
| Consumers don't have some god given right to cheap apples
| and beef. The government has a duty to protect both
| consumers and producers, because it's so closely
| interlinked - if you destroy your own industry to import
| cheap beef and apples what will you do if those foreign
| companies decide not to sell to you any more? Or if you
| can't import from them because there was a draught or a
| disease outbreak?
|
| Like, you think that the only think we should optimize
| for, ever, is the final price for the customer,
| everything else is not important, right? After all doing
| anything else is "punishing" customers for the "crime" of
| wanting cheap produce?
|
| Like, please take no offence, but that's incredibly short
| sighted.
| blueblisters wrote:
| It's pretty well accepted that tariffs lead to overall
| worse outcomes for all parties involved.
|
| Some reasons:
|
| - Someone mentioned price elasticity below. The demand
| for the product might actually drop because of higher
| prices from local producers
|
| - Local producers become less competitive, especially if
| the imported item was not cheaper because of lower labor
| cost but because of innovation
|
| - The downstream high-value supply chain becomes less
| competitive if tariffs are applied to an
| intermediate/low-value product
|
| There is a narrow space in which tariffs might work and
| that is when they're temporarily used to shelter local
| producers from outside competition with the hope that
| they can quickly build capability and scale of their
| global peers.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > It's pretty well accepted that tariffs lead to overall
| worse outcomes for all parties involved.
|
| Including the periods you can't import required/essential
| goods for various reasons and local production no longer
| exists due to previous cheap imports?
| whatever1 wrote:
| Protectionism seems to be working great for China though
| astrange wrote:
| It's not really working that well except that some of it
| serves their other ends, like being able to enforce laws
| on local companies better.
|
| What's much more important is they have good industrial
| policy, export discipline, and that unreasonably good
| deal with the UPU that lets them send mail to the US for
| cheaper than we can send it inside the country.
| whatever1 wrote:
| By not allowing amazon, google etc to do business in
| their country they enabled the development of huge,
| profitable corporations like Alibaba, Tencent etc that
| now employ advanced personnel like software developers,
| ML engineers etc, invest in university research, and
| overall have great positive impact in their economy.
|
| That is in direct contrast to what economists have been
| suggesting to us (aka the decision of China to restrict
| multinational corps to deploy their high tech would limit
| their growth)
| astrange wrote:
| They have Baidu because they have the industrial policy,
| higher education system and subsidies to produce Baidu.
| If another country banned Google they would simply not
| have Google and that would be it.
|
| Note that Yandex and VK exist in Russia without having to
| ban all competition.
| whatever1 wrote:
| So it seems blanket tariffs are as bad as blanket free
| passes to imports.
|
| The solution to me lies somewhere in between. I don't
| understand why in the US we decided that using our youth
| to part time flip burgers and serve at restaurants is a
| better investment to our economy compared to having
| factories that make widgets, even if they are more
| expensive than Chinese widgets.
| astrange wrote:
| There's nothing particularly special about factories that
| says we have to have them just because it's more romantic
| than a services economy. And we do have many kinds of
| manufacturing, as does Europe - we create many of the
| pieces that are then final assembled in China.
|
| The specific reason is we had a run of bad economics for
| a few decades where we pretended industrial policy didn't
| exist, and we didn't read How Asia Works.
| whatever1 wrote:
| It is not about romanticism. Manufacturing inherently is
| more resource intensive and has broader indirect impact
| to the economy. Take 10 restaurants with 100 employees
| and a plant with 100 employees.
|
| The restaurant just pays salaries to 100 people (with no
| specialized skills) and rent to the local real estate
| market (raw material and maintenance costs are very low).
|
| On the other hand a plant would need to have trained
| manufacturing engineers, safety engineers, economists,
| quality control, managers, sales, technicians, and they
| would support a big part of the local economy (IT,
| welders, machinists, logistics companies etc).
|
| A plant typically also has less personnel turnover,
| exactly because specialized labor is more scarce. That
| means that they have the incentive to provide full time
| jobs with good benefits to significant fraction of their
| workers.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| Yep the idea that protectionism doesn't work and is
| harmful is in direct contravention to how every single
| advanced industrial economy developed.
|
| Its a self serving idea pushed by people who benefit
| massively.
| cortesoft wrote:
| In aggregate, we produce and consume an equal amount.
| astrange wrote:
| Being able to buy stuff cheaper is actually good because both
| supply and demand exist. A better way to grow an economy is
| to do "export discipline", the opposite of import
| restriction, where you force your local industries to be
| international quality so that other countries buy from you.
| Amezarak wrote:
| That might be great if the good we're talking about is
| consumer electronics. (At least economically.
| Environmentally or socially perhaps we'd be better off
| without consumer electronics.)
|
| It's difficult for me to see how this works for the farmers
| and textile manufacturers. Underdeveloped economies by
| definition don't have much advanced industry. If you wipe
| out local producers of necessities you have virtually
| nothing left and no base to build on to develop advanced
| industry.
|
| I'm also not really sure this has turned out well for
| advanced countries like the US, but it definitely does make
| _part_ of the country richer.
|
| I'm leery of any argument that claims that any given
| economic policy is an unmitigated good with no
| contingencies or tradeoffs.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If foreign food or textiles are cheaper than your local
| production in a developing nation, it seems your
| population is suffering from those inflated prices and
| the aggregate good of the nation may very well be
| improved by having more food and clothing available at
| lower-than-current prices. Anything less is forcing your
| local population to subsidize the inefficient-but-
| domestic production of goods.
| blululu wrote:
| There's an old joke about a statistician who drowned in
| water that was only one meter deep - On Average. Thinking
| in terms of aggregate value neglects the possibility that
| you will create winners and losers in such a scenario and
| creating a system of transfers to share the aggregate
| surplus is politically difficult.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I agree it's a sovereign nation's call on what to do, but
| it seems like improving the lot of everyone who buys food
| (10s of millions of people) is something I'd be more
| inclined to do than to ensure that farmers (10s of
| hundreds of people) who are demonstrably uncompetitive
| continue to have a path to profitability anyway.
| Amezarak wrote:
| There are 2.6 million farmers in the US, or about 1.3% of
| the employed population. In less developed economies
| farmers are a much higher percentage of the population.
| We are talking about helping tens of millions of people
| who are farming. In Nigeria for example, it's 35% of the
| population. Only in very tiny countries are there only
| 'tens of hundreds' of farmers.
|
| Do you really think that wiping out employment for a
| third of the population would improve the economy? It
| takes money to make money.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Do you really think that harming 2 people for every 1 you
| help is obviously the best course of action? (It's not
| obviously better to me, though you point out some ways
| that it might not be as bad as that framing suggests.)
| gmueckl wrote:
| The problem is that free or cheap subsidized goods sent
| to developing countries to help them along ruin prices on
| the local market and remove local suppliers. There are
| many examples of well-meant, but badly thought out aid
| making things worse.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Suffering until global supply chains are disrupted. And
| when that happens, your country's lack of production
| independence becomes a vulnerability. Like how things are
| right now.
| jessedhillon wrote:
| What good is it to live in a wealthy nation, if being a
| citizen means you have to operate at cut throat
| efficiency in order to keep up? Creating slack for the
| average man to enjoy is also a valuable national economic
| goal.
| clairity wrote:
| in a similar vein, i _could_ drown in a bathtub, but it 's
| not likely. more rationale is needed here around whether that
| risk is worth considering seriously.
|
| the econ 101 idea that tariffs are always bad (something that
| invariably comes up in these kinds of discussions) is only
| true in perfectly spherical, frictionless worlds populated by
| instantaneously rational actors. tariffs actually can work in
| the real world (to develop a fledgling industry, for
| example), but it can't be a one-off holy-grail policy, but
| rather part of a holistic, coordinated program.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Try to ship the returned packages with Fedex or UPS.
| ziml77 wrote:
| How would that help? FedEx and UPS don't have some special
| privilege to bypass customs.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| There is something to be said for packaging products such
| that they are not selected for screening. Won't help this guy
| now, his stuff is flagged. But once we started shipping our
| international orders in a bubble envelope instead of a small
| box, we had many fewer returns as a result of unpaid import
| duty by the recipient.
| ryanlol wrote:
| They do get special customs handling and can definitely
| assist you with these issues instead of just sending things
| back.
| oaiey wrote:
| But maybe a different customs location/officer.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Customs has a complicated relationship with postal vs.
| courier imports.
|
| Customs hates postal imports/exports because they have to
| deal with low values, low-reimbursement and end-users that
| may not be, ahem, diplomatic when either side makes an
| error/fails to comprehend an incomprehensible set of
| regulations. And the usual treatment of individual end-users
| with ambiguous resentment like this case.
|
| If everyone switched all imports/exports to Fedex/UPS/etc and
| customs only had to deal with brokers, they'd both be much
| much happier. Customs can just sit in an office receiving
| digitized info from the couriers and decide what they want to
| inspect/review instead of sifting by hand.
|
| Mostly, customs just ignores the postal stream and lets
| things slide through without 100% correct paperwork, but I'm
| sure Fedex/UPS regularly lobbies against this laissez-faire
| approach.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| However at least here in Norway, they do know who to reach at
| customs to get an answer as to why it was rejected.
|
| It might take a few bounces but typically they get an answer
| and is able to sort it out.
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