[HN Gopher] DigiKey's Tariff Resources
___________________________________________________________________
DigiKey's Tariff Resources
Author : nativeit
Score : 156 points
Date : 2025-02-22 03:52 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.digikey.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.digikey.com)
| fragmede wrote:
| Says semiconductors have a 50% extra tarriff. That includes LEDs,
| presumably.
|
| I'm trying to do some things with LEDs, and ouch.
| fecal_henge wrote:
| Similarly my hobby involving ship to shore cranes is going to
| be painful.
|
| Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse.
| If this is already imported and paid for then it should be
| exempt right?
|
| The page doesnt state what happens to foreign customers. Does
| the duty only apply for domestic buyers?
| alibarber wrote:
| I'd also like some insight on the foreign buyer bit as
| DigiKey is by far the best and most reliable supplier to my
| part of the world despite being the other side of an ocean.
|
| I pay local VAT and any local tariffs, all collected by
| DigiKey, and don't think I pay any US taxes on the shipment.
|
| By intuition I'd think whatever US tariff wouldn't apply, but
| these things don't exactly make sense a lot of the time.
|
| Edit: Upon reading about the tariff drawback process, and
| these latest ones not being applicable to it - it does seem
| that I'll be paying US tariffs for something [from China]
| that is then exported to me in another country.
| foft wrote:
| Ouch, if that is the case this is only going to boost the
| non US suppliers. Has anyone tried lcsc.com? Digikey and
| mouser are great but if all semiconductors go up 50% that
| is a problem.
| alibarber wrote:
| Yes it does seem a bit strange - I guess the goal here is
| to encourage them to source and sell me a quality
| American SMD diode at less than $(0.006 + 10%) per unit.
|
| That said I'm struggling to fully understand it all, the
| site kind of implies that the 50% Semiconductor tariff
| _is_ drawbackable - and if we look some of those were in
| effect since 2024. It does say that the 10% 'China tax'
| is not.
|
| My reading here then is that the 10% extra is for
| everyone, and the rest of that table in addition is for
| goods consumed in the US. (And, some of those tariffs
| don't look very different from some of them in my non-US
| locale, which I would have to pay anyway)
|
| Still a daft situation, will for sure be looking around
| for other suppliers.
| guax wrote:
| Duties are paid only if the products are being moved from
| outside into the US. And the other way around it matching
| tarrifs were enacted (they're almost always are). Digikey
| Europe might be affected because of global economic
| consequences but not directly by tarrifs. So short term the
| price should not change if you're not buying from the US
| (both ways)
| leoedin wrote:
| Digikey (and Mouser) don't have warehouses in Europe -
| they express ship everything from the US.
|
| As far as I'm aware Farnell are the only major
| electronics retailer to have European warehouses. They
| don't have nearly the same level of stock as the big
| players. But this will certainly be a big boost for them.
| guax wrote:
| I missed that, I guess I got them confused. I bought once
| from them and from Farnell a few more times and in my
| head it came from around.
|
| Maybe its a good time for they to create one then.
| Kubuxu wrote:
| TME is European as well, and I think Arrow has warehouses
| in Europe.
| eqvinox wrote:
| Digi-Key's US warehouse seems to be a customs transit
| area. At least I didn't get charged any tariff when
| ordering to Switzerland a few days ago.
|
| Not doing it that way would be an immense disadvantage
| for Digi-Key against non-US distributors.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > it does seem that I'll be paying US tariffs for something
| [from China] that is then exported to me in another
| country.
|
| I'm sure that isn't right - Digikey imports and exports
| from across the world - including existing items with
| tariffs and duty - effectively their warehouses act like
| Bonded warehouses - they claim back 99% of Duty and Tariff
| paid on exported items using Drawback. I don't know the
| details of the new tariffs but it wouldn't make sense for
| the US to stop this for reexports.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_drawback
| alibarber wrote:
| From the page:
|
| One way DigiKey helps provide high-quality products at
| competitive prices is through our Duty Drawback Program,
| which allows us to recover a portion of the tariffs paid
| on imported products. However, under this Executive
| Order, the new 10% duty on all products imported from
| China and Hong Kong is not eligible for duty drawback
| programs.
| lysace wrote:
| Same.
|
| Most credible alternative in Europe: Distrelec/RS
| Components (both part of RS Group).
| XorNot wrote:
| You don't pay for how much the item in the store costs, you
| pay how much it will cost to restock it (see also:
| petrol/gasoline prices changing throughout the week - it's
| because there's a fixed charge to refill the tanks,
| regardless of how much goes in).
| supahfly_remix wrote:
| Out of curiosity, can you tell me more about your hobby that
| involves ship to shore cranes? Or, is this an indirect way of
| saying that your hobby involves transoceanic shipping? This
| is Hackernews, so it could plausibly be either.
| hobs wrote:
| A third interpretation is this is a joke and they are
| talking about a business they want to make work without the
| tariffs, but yeah might have flown over my head too.
| braiamp wrote:
| > Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their
| warehouse
|
| Companies do not price things as they are now, or how much it
| cost in the inventory, but about how much they must charge to
| keep the business afloat. That means that prices will go up
| only because there's a risk that prices would go up, so that
| in any event, they can cover whatever they need to keep
| operations on-going. While prices go up in both a high risk
| or no competitive markets, prices would only go down if
| there's a competitive market.
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| That's the minimum they charge. The maximum they charge is
| how much they think customers are willing or have to pay.
| If the general mood is that tariffs will cause inflation,
| then price gouging will likely occur.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their
| warehouse.
|
| Given they didn't have to pay tariffs before, I would assume
| they've declared all the goods and in that case yes.
|
| > Does the duty only apply for domestic buyers?
|
| If you re-export goods that was previously imported without
| using it, like DigiKey, then at least here in EU you can
| apply to get the duties paid back. However it's quite
| annoying if you import large quantities and sell small
| fractions. It works better if you do it on a 1-1 basis.
|
| Not 100% sure how it works in US, but in EU you can have a
| bonded warehouse, where you store goods before you perform
| the import declaration to free them for general use.
|
| This allows you to postpone the import declaration, and hence
| tariffs to be paid, to when you've sold the goods, or even
| avoid paying tariffs if you export the goods directly from
| the bonded warehouse.
|
| The latter part is very attractive to companies like DigiKey
| which sell a lot of their goods abroad.
|
| There are typically strict rules regarding getting a bonded
| warehouse license, with requirements for bookkeeping and
| physical separation with access control to avoid mistaking
| the bonded goods for normal non-bonded and hence technically
| smuggle goods into the country.
|
| This also affects who's performing the import declaration.
| Pre-tariffs there's usually not much incentive to do anything
| more fancy than letting someone else handle the import
| declarations. However the added bookkeeping and usually means
| the one responsible for the bonded warehouse is best suited
| to perform the declarations. At least here in EU there are
| companies that offer this as a service.
|
| Anyway the point was, if they didn't already have a bonded
| warehouse and decide to go with one, it's not just sending an
| email and get some approval. It might affect how DigiKey has
| to handle this goods deeply.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I guess there's always Goodwill, landfill. You can pull PCBs,
| desolder components.
| jayyhu wrote:
| AFAIK the Section 301 tariff (and increases) only applies to
| parts imported from China/HK. There are lots of manufacturers
| on DigiKey that make their parts from elsewhere where these
| tariffs are not assessed. As a data point, I recently bought a
| bunch of Lite-on LEDs on DK, their COO was Thailand, and I
| wasn't tariffed for those parts.
| jenadine wrote:
| I am not sure I understand the implications of these tariff.
| Basically it means that products are becoming more expensive for
| people in the US. How is that a good thing for them? I understand
| this can help some US company to sell more products in their
| country, but that seems to benefit only a very small amount of
| industries.
| braiamp wrote:
| > I understand this can help some US company to sell more
| products in their country
|
| If they are even able to satisfy the needs of the customer,
| either in quality, price or supply.
| from-nibly wrote:
| They wont be at first for sure. The vain hope is that it will
| settle out and eventually people will build manufacturing.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| People don't want to make capital investments whose success
| is based on a loose plan that seems to change weekly.
|
| Add in that you are then almost certainly limited to a
| domestic market since your goods are only affordable when
| the competition has to pay a whacking great penalty.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| As someone that sells products that are assembled from
| components that are sold and manufactured globally.
|
| My customers pay me for product. Some of that pays employees.
| The assembly house. And for parts are are imported. The tariffs
| basically means I have to pay extra to the government so they
| can give it to bunch of wealthy financial parasites.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Unless people relocate automated manufacturing lines for
| export products outside US soil.
|
| Thus, they save the US 25% + 10% tariff off, and whatever
| symmetric 25% response trading partners inflict on the US
| exports. i.e. one would save 60% off, avoid an economically
| hostile customs process, and may shop around for better tax
| systems. If the US market is isolated from a multi-origin
| product, than just collect the 35% markup on all products
| before shipping into the US like the new programs already
| require.
|
| Best of luck, I don't think people have really thought about
| this very much... =3
| dpkirchner wrote:
| That sort of manufacturing could take longer than 4 years
| to build much less profit from. Smarter to just wait it out
| and increase the domestic price to just below the foreign
| price+tariff.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Perhaps, but most light-industry will likely open
| secondary factory locations in 8 months or hire contract
| manufacturing firms in a few days. Then turn around and
| drop demand deficient labor in the hostile markets.
|
| People respond to actions rather than posturing, and
| business people view the political process very
| differently. We'd be fooling ourselves to think it is
| about anything other than profit. Many people are likely
| about to lose their jobs, and there is nothing funny
| about that... Best regards =3
| exceptione wrote:
| > but that seems to benefit only a very small amount of
| industries.
|
| Entirely logical response from a normal person used to think
| and act in a normal, decent way. Criminals
| break into a museum. There is an artwork there, 4000(!) years
| old. The thieves wreck the artwork and smelt the gold that is
| inside it for a EUR225 profit.
|
| There is a phenomenon of "The Cult of Wealth". Most people here
| cannot imagine how people with unlimited wealth, unlimited
| options, almost unlimited power think like.
|
| Have you seen the kids of the president ridicule the dying
| people in Ukraine? We are inclined to think that if you inherit
| almost the whole earth, you would be very grateful, kind and
| compassionate.
|
| Instead, they see the world in terms of just a handful of peers
| with the rest as resources to be extracted. We live in a world
| where we are brainwashed to think it is normal for corporate to
| call human beings "Human Resources".
|
| ---------------------------
|
| As soon as people learn to see what hides behind Trump and
| Doge, the networks that finance and selects people, they will
| lose the war. The theater is there to distract you, media will
| pick it up as bait but will not do the investigation of what
| _it_ is. And so we are paralyzed by the news of the day.
|
| What society needs to do is to not accept abnormal and
| egregious behavior as normal. We all know what is decent human
| interaction, and the few can only take power over the mass, if
| the people consent to it -- be it actively or passively.
| from-nibly wrote:
| > We are inclined to think that if you inherit almost the
| whole earth, you would be very grateful, kind and
| compassionate.
|
| Why would you be inclined to think that?
|
| Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
|
| Being greatful is not manufactured by having stuff.
|
| Being kind has nothing to do wtih what you have.
|
| I'm inclined to think that if someone inherit the whole earth
| you are
|
| 1. A person who sought after that, which is bad
|
| 2. Even if you were magically a good person before, will be
| ruined by it at a minimum the way winning the lottery ruins a
| person.
|
| 3. Even if you survive 1-2 you will become famous and will
| have to cope with that insanity.
| XorNot wrote:
| > Why would you be inclined to think that?
|
| See the number of people arguing that a billionaire can
| obviously be trusted with their money because he has a lot
| of it and clearly wouldn't want more.
| exceptione wrote:
| Sure, we might know it, but we never act on it. We allow
| super concentrations of super wealth and power to form. We
| allow corporate media. We allow corporate clients into
| politics. We allow fake news. We allow lies. We allow the
| dismantling of science. We allow the purge of competent
| people. Competence is a soft power, but the power hungry do
| not like to share.
|
| We know it. We don't believe it. We cannot grasp. For those
| few, we are nothing but a resource. Why share power with
| the powerless? Might makes right!
| johnny22 wrote:
| > Why would you be inclined to think that?
|
| See the number of people who say they voted for trump
| because they think he's a successful business man.
| analog31 wrote:
| If "the cult of wealth" is a thing, and wealthy people really
| think different than the rest of us, then a consequence is
| that the ultra wealthy absolutely shouldn't be allowed to
| make the rules for the rest of us, or manage public
| institutions.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > If "the cult of wealth" is a thing, and wealthy people
| really think different than the rest of us, then a
| consequence is that the ultra wealthy absolutely shouldn't
| be allowed to make the rules for the rest of us, or manage
| public institutions.
|
| That's why democracy was invented. :-)
| analog31 wrote:
| You read my mind.
| xeonmc wrote:
| And the tools to create democracy.
| bux93 wrote:
| Tariffs are just a tax. Similar to a sales tax, but it needs to
| be paid on import. To be clear, it's a tax on your own
| citizens, not foreign exports.
|
| If a product is cheaply produced in another country, and your
| domestic industry cannot match that price, your domestic
| industry might disappear. Suppose that other country is
| subsidizing their industry, then it's quite unfair, and it
| legitimizes supporting your own industry either by your own
| subsidies or retaliatory tariffs. As they say, to level the
| playing field.
|
| If the domestic industry is already dead, tariffs won't
| magically resurrect it. For example, building a chip industry
| can take billions of dollars in investments and years of
| development. All that time, those taxes are basically just
| costing consumers money. They need to be kept in place up until
| the new factories come online AND are paid off. This can take
| decades. Will those tariffs still be there? Will those other
| countries have ALSO invested? Those uncertainties make it hard
| to invest in a dead/dying industry, even with tariffs in place.
|
| One feature of tariffs is that it's a tax on consumption, so
| it's ultimately paid by consumers, and it's a regressive tax;
| the wealthiest will pay the smallest ratio of their income
| and/or wealth, while the working Joe will just see stuff
| getting more expensive - especially in the short term.
|
| Tariffs can work to retaliate against, and discourage, dumping.
| They can play a role in protecting vital industries. But
| arbitrarily imposing them for political points is a dangerous
| gambit.
| cudgy wrote:
| "One feature of tariffs is that it's a tax on consumption, so
| it's ultimately paid by consumers, and it's a regressive tax;
| the wealthiest will pay the smallest ratio of their income
| and/or wealth, while the working Joe will just see stuff
| getting more expensive - especially in the short term."
|
| I don't think it's this simple. The wealthy fat cats that are
| making money producing their stuff overseas or simply
| operating as middlemen for overseas manufacturers are going
| to have a reduction of income and profits.
|
| Furthermore, it depends on how the revenue from tariffs were
| used. If revenue from tariffs is used to lower taxes for
| lower income citizens, it would be effectively a progressive
| tax.
| GlassOwAter wrote:
| They won't be using tariffs to lower taxes for lower income
| citizens. Tax cuts for the rich have already been proposed.
| svnt wrote:
| Middlemen for overseas manufacturers are not typically what
| comes to mind when I hear "wealthy fat cats."
|
| If all the middlemen see the same increase in costs, they
| are not going to be the one to try to keep prices the same.
| They know everyone is taking the same hit so they can just
| pass it along together. The consumer decides to buy or not
| at that level.
|
| The innovation comes in avoiding the tariff. Often
| companies with sufficient scale of operations can pay
| additional lawyers and accountants to restructure and avoid
| tariffs.
|
| Tariffs can dramatically affect specific companies, but
| squishy middlemen (and multinationals) can often work
| around them.
| scottbez1 wrote:
| I run a tiny (<$30k annual revenue and much much smaller
| profit, or negative if I paid myself an hourly wage) side
| business that relies on custom manufacturing of open source
| hardware products I've designed. So very much not a
| "wealthy fat cat" - here's my experience with
| manufacturing:
|
| For die-cut plastic cards (think custom-shaped gift cards
| or hotel door hangers), I reached out to several US
| manufacturers for quotes and most never even responded. The
| one that did respond basically laughed at me and said my
| design was impossible to cut. So I went on Alibaba and had
| tons of quotes instantly and found a manufacturer. Not one
| of the responses were concerned about the design's
| manufacturability. And the manufacturer I picked does an
| incredible job with what is admittedly a challenging die
| cut design.
|
| As a tiny business, most of my orders end up being under de
| minimis (which is actually great for helping small
| businesses avoid the overhead of dealing with tariffs and
| level the playing field against large players that can be
| much more efficient at handling regulatory overhead through
| high volume).
|
| But with the change to eliminate de minimis and increase
| tariffs another 10% essentially overnight, my COGS is going
| to increase ~30%, which means either I shut down my
| business due to losing nearly all of my margin, or I
| increase prices substantially. It just hurts consumers AND
| small businesses like mine in the US.
|
| There isn't a US manufacturer I can switch to (again, price
| wasn't the issue). And the US manufacturers in the space
| that WERE still selling products despite the international
| competition will just increase their prices now that
| competition is more expensive.
| programmertote wrote:
| That is what people like trump don't understand (not
| surprising). Instead of gradually rebuilding the
| manufacturing capabilities of the US while supporting
| essential industries (like steel production) to create
| competition, they think slapping tariff will magically
| make the domestic manufacturing come back. Like you said,
| the US manufacturers will just ride along the coattails
| of tariffs instead of trying to be competitive and/or
| expand their production (they have no incentive to do
| so).
|
| Again, knowing how short-sighted the US politicians and
| the society as a whole (e.g., look at how a majority of
| corps only care about short-term/quarterly profit) have
| become, it is not surprising but saddening to observe
| (because I have been living in the US for a bit over two
| decades and cannot move back to my home country, which
| is, at the moment, riddle with civil war).
| YZF wrote:
| But there is new incentive created here. Now someone can
| create a small business to serve die-cutting like the
| parent needs because they have the extra edge over the
| Chinese competition. These sorts of small shops that did
| small runs used to be part of the economy before they
| closed after they couldn't keep up with the low cost
| coming out of China and they can in theory come back if
| making stuff in China becomes expensive enough.
|
| Is that an immediate win for the consumer and the
| economy? Probably not. In the long term it could be
| reversing the globalization which is maybe a good thing
| (or at least that's the argument).
| roywiggins wrote:
| Anything imposed on the whim of the executive can be
| taken away just as easily, so building an entire factory
| based on an assumption about tariffs remaining in place
| is probably a hard sell.
| YZF wrote:
| As the joke goes only two things are certain in life,
| death and income taxes.
|
| Seriously though- yes. But it moves the needle a little
| bit on the expected value. If the tariffs survive for a
| year it'll move the needle more.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > But there is new incentive created here. Now someone
| can create a small business to serve die-cutting like the
| parent needs because they have the extra edge over the
| Chinese competition.
|
| You'd need _dramatically_ higher tariffs for there to be
| any chance of that. Or a complete trade embargo. And
| either way, it's gonna mean much more expensive goods for
| consumers.
| xienze wrote:
| > Instead of gradually rebuilding the manufacturing
| capabilities of the US while supporting essential
| industries (like steel production) to create competition,
| they think slapping tariff will magically make the
| domestic manufacturing come back.
|
| So what would you propose as the proverbial kick in the
| butt to encourage domestic production? And before you say
| "subsidies", remember that a large segment of the
| population isn't wild about those either because they
| perceive it to be some sort of evil tax dodge for big
| corporations (see: literally every time some state gives
| a company incentives to build a plant or office).
|
| The reason we're in this mess in the first place is
| because we chased cheaper means of production and once
| everything at home was gone, we just threw our hands up
| and went "well it'll be too painful to fix it, anyone who
| tries is an idiot."
| Animats wrote:
| > they think slapping tariff will magically make the
| domestic manufacturing come back.
|
| Certainly not when tariff policy changes every few days
| on a whim. That doesn't make you want to build a chip
| resistor plant in the US. Or even a smartphone plant.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Indeed.
|
| Or when you have trade agreements in place, but then use
| emergency powers granted to you in 1977 to push aside
| those agreements and add tariffs
|
| It doesn't engender trust.
|
| Businesses within and without are not a fan of constantly
| shifting sands.
| stefan_ wrote:
| I don't get it. You go into the grocery and pay sales tax
| on food for the week, but you import random trash from
| China, pay nothing and this is "great for helping small
| businesses"? No matter what you think about wholesale
| tariffs, surely this particular arrangement must strike
| you as odd and impossible to compete with for local
| producers?
|
| In the EU we pay full taxes on every import, it's really
| not that complicated once you explain to the Chinese guys
| to not mark it as "gift" like its 2005.
| macNchz wrote:
| > The wealthy fat cats that are making money producing
| their stuff overseas or simply operating as middlemen for
| overseas manufacturers are going to have a reduction of
| income and profits.
|
| The companies who moved manufacturing abroad and pocketed
| the savings for their investors and CEOs aren't likely to
| just say "oh well" and take a big hit to their margins--
| they'll just mark up their products to make up the
| difference. Maybe, eventually, domestic competition will
| emerge but it's not a given and likely takes time. In the
| meantime, consumers are paying the increased costs.
| sigmar wrote:
| >The wealthy fat cats that are making money producing their
| stuff overseas or simply operating as middlemen for
| overseas manufacturers are going to have a reduction of
| income and profits.
|
| I'd love this to be true, but where is there recent
| evidence this will happen? When Trump put tariffs on
| washers in 2018, LG and Samsung (importers of machines)
| didn't lose profits, their prices went up:
| https://youtu.be/_-eHOSq3oqI?t=130
| thayne wrote:
| The wealthy fat cats are often heading companies in
| oligopolies. They just increase prices to absorb the
| tariffs, blame inflation and public policy, and continue to
| make the same profits.
| mikewarot wrote:
| > For example, building a chip industry can take billions of
| dollars in investments and years of development.
|
| Worse than that... you also need all the other things in the
| "ecosystem" that support them chips, such as discrete
| components, circuit board fabrication, assembly, etc.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| And the most important bit, people who can staff the plants
| and operate the machinery required.
| ahoka wrote:
| And divesting capital and workers from other industries
| that might benefit the country more.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| The tldr version imo of tariffs is to ask yourself if their
| should be tariffs on Chinese evs and work backwards from there
| to every other industry.
|
| The more detailed answer boils down to if you as a business can
| save 1% producing a product by buying a widget you need from
| overseas, that's what you'll do. So instead of a domestic
| company paying employees in your country all through it's
| supply chain, it all goes overseas. This costs you as a
| business 1%, but in theory has a large enough economic impact
| to benefit the country overall.
| 127 wrote:
| I wonder if this also applies to Mouser. I've been buying pretty
| much all of my components from there, but if it becomes much more
| expensive I might have to just source from China and learn to
| read their datasheets. Mouser has much better customer experience
| and Texas Instruments, Analog Devices etc. have much better chips
| and docs, but at some point the 10x less expensive Chinese clones
| (and these days even new Chinese made chips) will just become the
| rational choice.
|
| (With the assumption that this will be just the start of a trade
| war around chips)
| pwg wrote:
| There are also tariffs being applied to goods from China, so
| "just source from China" may not allow you to avoid the
| tariffs.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| I think tariff targets Chinese goods in general. Maybe you can
| source from ShenZhen in person but I'm not sure how the Custom
| office deals with this. I guess it's OK as long as you don't
| bring in quantity.
|
| Another solution is to just live in ShenZhen when it's
| applicable. The city is nice and vibrant, and you are treated
| pretty well as long as you don't get into politics.
| FreebasingLLMs wrote:
| > Another solution is to just live in ShenZhen when it's
| applicable. The city is nice and vibrant, and you are treated
| pretty well as long as you don't get into politics.
|
| That's an extremely subtle way of saying "keep your mouth
| shut".
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| It's not. You can freely talk about other topics. In fact,
| talking politics is probably safe as long as you are not
| too loud. I think it is the same for all countries I have
| lived in. Talking about politics is always taboo.
| scottbez1 wrote:
| > Maybe you can source from ShenZhen in person but I'm not
| sure how the Custom office deals with this. I guess it's OK
| as long as you don't bring in quantity.
|
| Historically this was true, because the de minimis exemption
| meant small value imports didn't get charged tariffs. But the
| recent tariff EO both increased existing tariffs AND removed
| de minimis, meaning even a $5 import now needs to go through
| the overhead of tariff calculation and payment.
|
| The de minimis change is temporarily paused because there's
| no way carriers or enforcement could actually handle the
| change in tariff volume with no warning, but broadly
| speaking, the low value direct import route is going away.
| eqvinox wrote:
| > I wonder if this also applies to Mouser.
|
| Yes.
|
| > I might have to just source from China
|
| It also applies to anything you source from China yourself.
| It's an import tax. Any applicable goods or services introduced
| to the US market incur it.
|
| The one place it doesn't apply is when Digi-Key (or Mouser)
| ship to outside the US, their warehouses are apparently transit
| areas. (Source: I ordered to Switzerland a few days ago. No
| tariffs. You can probably check yourself by creating an order.)
| sowbug wrote:
| If you're buying from China, you'll be paying the Trump Sales
| Tax. And if you try to ship directly from China yourself,
| you'll pay administrative fees to whoever handles the actual
| tax payment for you. For a few moments in early February before
| the administration began backtracking, DHL was charging a $32
| fee for each shipment, even for a $1 trinket, and the other
| shippers (Cainao etc) were rapidly gearing up to do the same.
| The de minimis exemption for low-value goods was also briefly
| suspended, which is why the fees were so out of whack, and also
| why USPS momentarily stopped accepting shipments from China and
| Hong Kong: they didn't have the infrastructure to suddenly deal
| with fees on huge volumes of packages.
|
| Buying your Chinese stuff through Mouser or Digikey or Arrow
| will spread that administrative fee across a whole shipping
| container of components. You'll still be paying the tax, but
| the administrative costs will be amortized.
| 34679 wrote:
| I have a PCBA order from JLCPCB that should ship any day now.
| Cost at checkout was a bit over $200, with no mention of tariffs.
| I've been wondering if I'm going to get hit with it by UPS. Has
| anyone else here had any experience with this yet?
| nixgeek wrote:
| Likely yes although I'm not sure if the administration has
| fully got rid of De Minimis or figured out how to reduce from
| $800 USD.
|
| With UPS the added kicker is UPS charges a $70 processing fee
| themselves for processing something through Customs for you,
| paying the tariff for you so the package isn't delayed and then
| enabling you to pay them back in advance of delivery on ups.com
| or the driver will ask for payment at the door when delivering
| your goods.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I don't know if UPS going into the states is the same as
| Canada, but you can avoid the clearance fee by not shipping
| with UPS ground. The higher levels of UPS service do not have
| the bullshit fee added on, and you just pay the cost of
| taxes.
| mmastrac wrote:
| USPS and Canada Post were the most cost-effective way to
| deal with customs for the longest time. Unsure if that's
| the case anymore.
| slavik81 wrote:
| Canadians can also self clear packages in person at a
| CBSA office through the Courier Low Value Shipment
| program [1], if the value of the package is under $3300.
| It's a bit of a hassle, but has saved me >$100 in
| brokerage fees on some packages when UPS Ground was by
| far the cheapest option.
|
| [1]: https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/courier/lvs-
| efv/menu-eng....
| cwillu wrote:
| From that link: "The CBSA has placed a moratorium on
| applications for participation in the Courier Low Value
| Shipment Program effective June 3, 2019, until further
| notice. For additional information regarding the
| moratorium please refer to Customs Notice 19-12."
| vile_wretch wrote:
| That only applies to couriers who want to participate in
| the program, not consumers who want to self-clear their
| imported shipments. A person doesn't need to register,
| they can just take the appropriate forms to a CBSA office
| and pay any taxes/duties themselves. Kind of a confusing
| thing to have posted at the top of a page that seems more
| applicable to consumers than commercial importers.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Unless JLCPCB explicitly sold you under DDP terms[1], you'll
| have to pay applicable tariffs. I'm 99% certain they did not do
| that, it's usually explicitly mentioned. DigiKey for example
| has this as an explicit choice when I order to Norway.
|
| Here in Norway that also involves a service fee by express
| companies like UPS as paying tariffs means they can't use a
| simplified customs declaration, and they typically front the
| payment to get you your goods ASAP. YMMV.
|
| edit: Seems I missed that Trump postponded[2] the low-value
| exemption, De Minimis, so your shipment is probably in the
| clear. But next one might not be.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms#Allocations_of_costs...
|
| [2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/02/07/trump-
| reins...
| 34679 wrote:
| Thanks for the links.
| ericwood wrote:
| I had a $300 order (ordered late January, arrived last week)
| and was hit with the tariffs via UPS along with their bogus
| processing fee as another commenter mentioned. They wait for it
| to reach the US before holding it hostage. Would recommend
| using DHL if at all possible, as they make dealing with it a
| lot less painful.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > their bogus processing fee
|
| At least here in Norway, though similar in many other
| countries that I know, it's not entirely bogus.
|
| Typically there are real costs involved with submitting a
| customs declaration, especially if it requires actual people
| looking at the invoice and filling out the customs
| declaration based on it. An order from JCLPCB or similar
| would typically fall in that category.
|
| Then there's the duties. Either they hold the goods until
| you've paid, in which case they need storage space and
| bookkeeping, along with inspections from customs every so
| often. Or they just pay up front and bill you after the fact.
| In either case there are real costs involved.
|
| That said they're certainly not a charity, and I do think
| they exploit a bit the fact that often the importer doesn't
| have much of a say or knowledge in picking the shipping
| company. Perhaps the seller only deals with UPS for example.
| cwillu wrote:
| Bullshit. It's an entirely predictable cost at the time of
| shipping, and should be built into _the cost of shipping_
| as paid for by the party _paying for the service_. This is
| simply a means to double dip, knowing that the receiver
| doesn't know better in advance and can't do anything about
| it once they find out.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| The buyer/importer is paying for the service, either
| directly or indirectly, so matters little in that regard.
| The seller ain't a charity either and will pass on any
| costs. You're not getting DDP for free.
|
| But I agree that the transparency regarding customs
| processing fees is very lacking. Obviously they don't
| have an incentive as long as customers don't see this as
| a differentiator.
| cwillu wrote:
| It's not about getting it for free, it's getting billed
| at the time money is already changing hands.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| But you can already get this, just demand DDP terms[1]
| when buying. Seller might refuse in which case you can
| take your business elsewhere, or they might accept but
| charge extra for the service.
|
| For example DigiKey allows me to select[2] between DDP or
| CPT, which means I have to pay for importing the
| goods[3].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms#DDP_%E2%80%9
| 3_Delive...
|
| [2]: https://www.digikey.no/en/help-support/delivery-
| information/...
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms#Allocations_
| of_costs...
| ericwood wrote:
| I understand it takes more on their end but I _hate_ that
| it 's not baked in the the base shipping fee. They know
| they're going to have to do the extra work, why not take
| that into account on the base price?
|
| JLCPCB recently started offering them as a shipping option,
| and they tend to be $5-10 under DHL's quote. The DHL price
| takes the additional processing fees into account and I'm
| not left with a nasty surprise in addition to the
| tariffs/customs fees.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > They know they're going to have to do the extra work,
| why not take that into account on the base price?
|
| There's the option of doing it yourself or have some
| third party doing it, though you usually still end up
| paying some fee to the express company.
|
| A lot of business customers do that, at least here,
| especially if they got goods with duties where they might
| not be confident in the goods classification[1] done by
| the express company, or if they have exemptions.
|
| Though as I mentioned earlier, I do agree there's too
| little transparency here, and that they're taking
| advantage of it. I suspect the only way they'll improve
| is if customers start voting with their wallet.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonized_System#Clas
| sificati...
| scottbez1 wrote:
| Just got a JLCPCB order this week (below $800) via UPS and it
| arrived no problem with no tariffs since the de minimis
| exemption is temporarily still active from the latest of the
| tariffs EOs.
|
| In the past with a DHL order over $800 they just sent me an
| invoice to pay before they'd deliver the package. Make sure you
| check the invoice though - DHL screwed up the HTS codes and
| tariff calculations and substantially overcharged, so I had to
| talk to DHL support to get it fixed (which ended up being
| really straightforward).
| theChaparral wrote:
| I think the de minimis exemption is still in effect temporarily
| because they don't have a system set up to charge the tariffs
| yet.
|
| https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2025/02/07/tru...
| jkestner wrote:
| To my understanding, your board is a subassembly and not
| subject to the tariffs. There's an existing semiconductor
| tariff as well as this product tariff, and various categories
| that make it hard to untangle. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong -
| trying to figure it out:
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/pickup-...
| warble wrote:
| Not true, all my boards have been subject to the tariffs
| going back to the first Trump administration.
| bsimpson wrote:
| There's a piece of furniture in eyeing that's twice as much on
| Amazon as on AliExpress.
|
| I have two anxieties about Ali that are keeping me from making
| a decision though:
|
| - You're essentially trusting foreign eBay sellers to get
| customs right. If they screw up, it's a ding against your
| Global Entry account. You're making yourself liable for the
| competence of strangers, and I don't know the system well
| enough to know if you can trust their ratings.
|
| - I've yet to hear anything about how the tariffs are working
| out in practice. I don't wanna hit buy and find out everything
| is way more complicated/expensive than it was last month.
|
| I should probably just buy from Amazon, but it's hard to commit
| to paying full price when you know everyone else is selling it
| for way less (but more risk of something shady happening).
| dcrazy wrote:
| I would never buy furniture from Alibaba _or_ Amazon. I've
| bought a couple pieces of basic furniture from Amazon,
| including a bed frame from a third party seller that was
| missing essential pieces for which I was given a 50% discount
| as compensation. But at least if you buy from Amazon
| directly, the product is more likely to meet regulations. I
| have no faith that any furniture ordered from Alibaba meets
| any of the standards (CSPC, California fire code) it might
| claim.
| bsimpson wrote:
| In this case, it is the exact same article. It's rather
| distinctive.
| boardedupshack wrote:
| If JLCPCB doesn't charge, you will get a bill from CBP, customs
| and border patrol. I've purchased capex equipment (items over
| $25k) from China for my small company and that's how we've paid
| tariffs in the past.
|
| (Contrary to the current US administration's lies, the buyer
| pays the tariff, not the seller.)
| gfkclzhzo wrote:
| I miss the 'no new taxes' generation of conservatives
| Gormo wrote:
| I miss conservatives.
| selykg wrote:
| Not a conservative but I can respect the old school
| conservatives to some extent.
|
| Present day conservatives are just awful people in general in
| my experience.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I continue to be astonished at how the Republican party
| transformed from libertarians into a personality cult
| overnight because some weirdo won an election.
|
| Lindsey Graham was on TV being all "never Trump" one week
| and then fully supportive the next. c.c. almost everyone
| else in Washington.
|
| I wonder what the tipping point is among Republican voters
| between those who genuinely support Trump vs those who
| think the Democratic candidates are so bad for foreign
| policy, DEI, etc. that they'll vote from Trump in protest.
|
| Who would the Democrats have to nominate to get the
| libertarians who used to vote Republican to back them
| instead?
| boardedupshack wrote:
| I think Sanders would have unified because my MAGA
| parents liked his working-class support. But if I mention
| that among my progressive friends I get glares and stern
| warnings that Hillary was "the best" candidate and any
| objection is sexist. It's kinda like being a conservative
| who doesn't believe in god or is gay, your party will
| shun you.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I'm from Nevada.
|
| I know lots of conservatives who aren't religious.
| Gormo wrote:
| > I think Sanders would have unified
|
| No, Sanders would never be a unifying figure.
| Libertarians see him as being essentially equivalent to
| Trump: a demagogue who makes emotional appeals to build a
| cult of personality, deeply misunderstands economics, and
| seeks to use political power in an unbounded and
| illegitimate ways.
| boardedupshack wrote:
| But there as many libertarians that matter as there are
| antifa that matter.
|
| They are noise in the data.
|
| Populism is a marketing tool (to quote Hank Green) and
| Sanders wielded it as well as trump, but to help people,
| not punish them. Both have decades of track records
| demonstrating this fact.
| Gormo wrote:
| > But there as many libertarians that matter as there are
| antifa that matter.
|
| Various surveys have indicated that 20-30% of the US
| population broadly align with libertarian principles,
| regardless of party affiliation or nominal
| identification. This aligns fairly well with the
| proportion of the electorate that had negative opinions
| of both Trump and Harris in the last election (even those
| who took a "lesser of evils" approach and voted for one
| of them).
| boardedupshack wrote:
| Oooo I can play that game too:
|
| 99% of people agree with liberal policies: ask anyone if
| they'd like to pay less for better healthcare coverage.
| ZekeSulastin wrote:
| I know anecdote vs anecdote is pretty much meaningless
| and I'm channeling "No true Scotsman", but I find it hard
| to believe an actual progressive telling you that - the
| complaints from the progressive wing about Sanders losing
| the primaries are evergreen.
| Gormo wrote:
| > Present day conservatives are just awful people in
| general in my experience.
|
| I don't think I've seen any conservatives involved in
| mainstream politics in the past 15 to 20 years. I see
| people using the _word_ "conservatives" to describe
| something else entirely, but few actual conservatives.
| boardedupshack wrote:
| I miss not fearing about being doxxed or flagged by the
| current administration and being targeted by their mob of
| thugs. And I live in the US.
| mmastrac wrote:
| I find it tragically hilarious how the leader of the most
| powerful country in the world sees tarriffs and fails to
| understand the interconnectedness of economies that benefit both.
| When someone thinks of the world as a zero-sum game it's pretty
| clear.
|
| And as a Canadian whose country been the target of a certain
| leader's 51st state jibes, I find it pretty hard to sympathize
| with the pain that Americans are going through and how bad
| inflation is going to get.
|
| I suspect we'll end up seeing the Trump era as a good thing for
| the rest of the world -- a stable America tends to suck up all
| the oxygen in the room and the current daily whiplash makes the
| rest of us just prefer to trade with each other.
|
| While the US still holds a fair bit of monetary power worldwide,
| we're basically seeing them spend soft power at a ridiculous
| rate.
|
| Meanwhile, we're refocusing our economy to make it less US-
| centric, finding new markets for our resources and watching
| America self-immolate.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| Yeah as much as I'm very much unhappy with the consequences of
| this to me directly, I imagine this admin is going to be really
| important abroad, for the EU in particular, for identifying
| unnecessary vulnerabilities and dependencies on US
| infrastructure.
| mmastrac wrote:
| I previously worked in a five-eyes facing role and it's
| pretty terrifying when one staunch ally loses its mind. So
| much procedure and process is based on reliability.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| We're not really spending soft power as much as flushing it
| down the shitter. I won't be mad at all if Canada wants their
| own nuclear weapons now. Good fences and all that
| dsign wrote:
| I was discussing today with a relative how Cuba's Fidel Castro
| framed the public opinion in the country in such a way the
| nation is currently... having a very hard time. Even after
| Fidel Castro's dead. Worse, Hugo Chavez imported the same set
| of morose ideas, and a decade later, with both idiots dead, the
| two countries are competing to see which one has longer
| blackouts. Never underestimate people's capacity to listen to
| popular figures and embrace damaging cabals.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Strange but conventional perspective. I would say to never
| underestimate the long-term sadism of the US when dealing
| with small countries who insist on abolishing slavery or
| owning their own natural resources, or the ability of the
| people who benefit from that sadism to blame the victims of
| it.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| Trump's tariffs against China are at least aligned with both
| his, and long-term America stated strategy and goals. America
| has tried the free trade trick with China to try to compel it
| to towards political liberalization - it didn't work. Remember
| that Trump's tariffs on China from his first term were not
| cancelled by Biden - infact Biden added to the tariffs, in
| addition to enacting export restrictions. Both Bush Jr and
| Obama enacted limited tariffs on Chinese products.
|
| If you look at trade action against China, you can see the
| contours of a strategy that could maybe actually work.
| Obviously, tariffs cannot be the only component of such a
| strategy, since the disparity between Chinese and American
| manufacturing capability in many fields is absolutely gigantic.
| It took decades for China to reach their current position,
| there's no reason to expect that America, or the west as a
| whole could expect to catch up in anything less than roughly a
| decade scale, especially with only unpredictable tariffs.
|
| Trumps tariff plans against the rest of North America and the
| EU however... those fly in the very face of attempting to
| seriously take on China. USMCA is up for renewal in 2026.
| Whatever legitimate issues Trump had with Canada and Mexico,
| and whatever strong arm position he wanted to take, he could
| have messaged as a part of a prelude to the renewal. This
| probably would result in better outcomes for the US.
|
| The US is finding that many of their critical supply chains
| (including defense supply chains) are passing through China.
| Tariffs alone are not sufficient to disentangle these elements,
| and the domestic messaging from Trump simply does not create
| the domestic conditions for sustaining both the tariffs and
| whatever other policies and aid are required to enact these
| structural changes. It's difficult to reconcile "lower
| inflation", "slash the budget and deficit", "tax cuts for the
| rich", "tariffs", and "reindustrialize America" all at once.
|
| Randomly picking the Toyota EV battery plant that's supposed to
| come online this year in North Carolina - site selection was
| announced back in 2021. In many of these critical areas, we're
| talking multi-year minimal lead times to bring new capacity
| online.
| ellen364 wrote:
| How the current US administration is treating European and
| North American countries makes me wonder if they are serious
| about taking on China.
|
| As a Brit, I've been surprised by how much my view has
| shifted in the last few weeks. I used to assume we'd be
| allies with the US and have a probably competitive and maybe
| adversarial relationship with China. Now I see the US
| administration basically saying "we're going to make you pay
| through the nose for everything" (e.g. taking Ukrainian
| minerals). So I've started thinking "Well, if the US and
| China will both behave like that, surely we're best off
| playing them against each other and seeing who'll offer us
| more?"
|
| That seems like a very bad deal for the US. So I figure that
| (a) the administration isn't serious about taking on China,
| or (b) assumes European and North American countries will
| roll over, or (c) they think they can go it alone.
| thayne wrote:
| > And as a Canadian whose country been the target of a certain
| leader's 51st state jibes, I find it pretty hard to sympathize
| with the pain that Americans are going through and how bad
| inflation is going to get.
|
| Less than half of Americans that voted voted for Trump, and
| while there are definitely some people happy about what he is
| doing, there are also many who voted for him that aren't. I'd
| also like to point out that Trump didn't say anything about
| annexing Canada until after he had won the election.
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall him talking about
| about Greenland or the Panama canal prior to the election
| either.
| neom wrote:
| These guys have been doing something similar for just Canada <>
| US, was surprised to see this stuff popping up:
| https://www.zerodraftai.com/insights/2025-canadian-tariff-re...
| woile wrote:
| Trump is going the peronism route Argentina took. Where
| protectionism was implemented for the sake of... Making the
| people in power richer.
|
| You cannot just tariff if your industry is not there, people end
| up paying higher prices.
|
| Next thing you'll hear is that America is producing but actually
| they will be assembling (for this you'll need to get along well
| with China). Crazy that Milei and Trump get along well mainly
| because of their social policies, but economic policies are so
| different. The US needs only two allies, Mexico and Canada, the
| only countries it has borders with, and instead Trump is just
| creating hate there.
| yalogin wrote:
| Let's assume tariffs are used as a means to bring manufacturing
| to the US. By that definition the administration has no idea what
| level of tariffs will make this happen. Setting up manufacturing
| in the US for any item is not cheap - we don't have the know how,
| labor to do it to begin with. On top of that the cost of
| manufacturing is many fold compared to china, India, Bangladesh
| or Taiwan. So 25% or 10% is still not in anyway going to force
| manufacture to come back.
|
| Tariffs have to be at an insane level to justify bringing
| manufacturing back. My worry is that the administration is may be
| prepared to go there. That will cause a deep deep recession
| across the whole globe. Even then it will take a couple of
| decades to have meaningful manufacturing in the US
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| > we don't have the know how, labor to do it to begin with.
|
| That, I believe, is one of the reasons why the H-series and
| E-series exist in the United States, along with the L visa. It
| gives you the opportunity to bring foreigners into the United
| States, either for a limited (but finitely-extendable) period
| of time, or permanently.
|
| You can argue that the current forms of those visas do not
| work, but that is not my point: My point is that the above
| reason is why the visas exist.
|
| To bring my point back around to tariffs: I think making the
| above-mentioned visas harder to get goes against the purpose of
| the tariffs. If you want manufacturing etc. brought back here,
| then make it easy (or easier) to get the knowledgeable folks
| who you need to train the folks who will do the manufacturing
| here.
| jfim wrote:
| I believe the idea is to replace the internal revenue service
| (income taxes) by the external revenue service (tariffs).
|
| I doubt it would work, but from what I understand the rich
| typically prefer sale taxes to wealth/income taxes since they
| only consume a small fraction of their net worth in goods,
| preferring to invest (which wouldn't be taxed).
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