There's a six-month period for new systems to be implemented.
> 88 operators worldwide fully or partially suspending services, the Universal Postal Union.. said operators didn't have enough time to prepare for the changes, or to put in place mechanisms to collect the duties and establish a link with the relevant US authorities.. The agency is working on "the rapid development of a new technical solution that will help get mail moving to the United States again," UPU Director General Masahiko Metoki said
gsky · 21h ago
Even tourists like me are afraid to visit america now. So much hatred
A statistically significant drop, but not exactly plummetting.
Whoppertime · 20h ago
The decline of international traffic to Las Vegas from places like Canada are more noticeable
glimshe · 19h ago
The traffic to Vegas is down from all over. People simply don't have the low interest rate money to gamble anymore.
theshrike79 · 3h ago
I can gamble with my money just fine.
What I don't want to gamble is with my life and freedom. Will I get detained because of spicy JD Vance memes I posted or not? Nobody knows!
rich_sasha · 18h ago
I can't read the article (paywall) - does the "international arrivals" include Americans travelling overseas, or only non-Americans?
If the latter, then indeed it's not dramatic. But if the former, then the number of contingent trips to the US might have dropped a lot, and is hiding mixed in with regular unaffected traffic of USians.
cma · 20h ago
Departure flights of Americans to foreign countries is up 2.9%. If that is indicative of the normal post pandemic recovery and travel growth then down 3.8% might be down roughly 6% from what it would have been. But it's possible the trend wouldn't match America's travel growth or more egress from America is being driven by related factors.
SanjayMehta · 21h ago
My visa expired some years ago, and thanks to covid we switched to video conferencing. A blessing in disguise.
votepaunchy · 20h ago
Considering the effects of air travel on the climate, why would you not video conference?
SanjayMehta · 20h ago
1. At certain levels, one has to meet your peers for lunch and dinner. Makes it harder for them to say no.
2. Could not care less about “climate issues.” A better reason for video conferencing is to avoid airports and especially dealing with border control clowns asking the same silly questions every trip, and the McDonald’s rejects called TSA.
cmxch · 15h ago
More for the Americans to enjoy.
jstummbillig · 22h ago
That's what was supposed to happen, right?
kaitai · 22h ago
There has long been a desire to privatize the USPS, so this also fits neatly into the narrative that the USPS should not be a public good.
master_crab · 22h ago
This is affecting private carriers as well.
chuckadams · 21h ago
There's no goal for the privatized USPS to actually be successful, only to destroy the public good. It's government, it works, so therefore it must be destroyed. This is really how Republicans think.
chongli · 20h ago
I'm Canadian so I can't speak to the issues surrounding the USPS.
However, in Canada we remain in the midst of a long work-to-rule strike by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) against Canada Post (CP). The biggest issue in this strike is that there is a very wide gap between what CUPW is demanding (in terms of pay increases, protection of workers, maintenance of routes) and what CP is offering.
CP had been losing billions of dollars (even prior to the strike) and the situation continues to worsen as consumers lose confidence in the reliability of CP's parcel service, due to the strike. CP wants to close a lot of post offices, complete the phase-out of door-to-door postal service in favour of community mailboxes (which are already in use for more than half of households), and even reduce delivery frequency to less than 5 days per week.
I actually support these cost-cutting measures by CP because I, like many other Canadians, receive almost zero useful mail by post these days. Almost all of the mail I receive is advertising (junk mail), with the few exceptions being bills and statements from banks and the like (the latter of which ought to be phased out to fully electronic since I only bank through mobile apps anyway).
And so I'm left wondering what exactly is the public good in the postal service anyway? It seems more like a subsidy for a handful of advertisers and banks as well as a jobs program for postal workers. I send actual letters by mail so infrequently that I wouldn't mind paying $10 to send one by courier. But that isn't even within the space of proposals (shutting down CP completely)!
The most extreme proposal would be for CP to eliminate door-to-door service (community mailboxes only) and to switch to weekly delivery only, instead of daily. That would not affect the vast majority of Canadians in the slightest. The only ones who would be truly affected are those with mobility issues (disabilities or the elderly) who are unable to walk down the street to the community mailbox. Fortunately, there is already a service in place for providing mobility assistance to these people!
linotype · 20h ago
> CP wants to close a lot of post offices, complete the phase-out of door-to-door postal service in favour of community mailboxes (which are already in use for more than half of households), and even reduce delivery frequency to less than 5 days per week.
Honestly that sounds like some good ways to reduce costs and carbon emissions. For the elderly there would need to be some considerations made. I live in the US but in large apartment buildings here there’s a couple of mailrooms for hundreds of units, I imagine it’s significantly more efficient than delivering to each unit.
Ekaros · 20h ago
Here large apartment complexes get door delivery. For single family, unless resident is certifiably limited in mobility delivery is to communal array of postal boxes. Alternating 2 and 3 days a week. Running through a building is not too inefficient. Delivering between them is.
chongli · 19h ago
That still seems like a big waste of time. Having a postal worker walk door to door throughout a large building takes way longer than having them fill up the mailboxes in a single mailroom on the ground floor. I wouldn’t be surprised if it took ten times as many postal workers to deliver to apartment doors instead of mailrooms.
joenot443 · 21h ago
> it works, so therefore it must be destroyed. This is really how Republicans think
I've been living here four years and met some really wonderful Americans, both Democrat and Republican, yet I don't think I've met a single one who thinks the way you're presenting. This seems like a pretty bleak way to view your country's politics, respectfully.
Arainach · 21h ago
What voters think is largely irrelevant. Republican politicians campaign by claiming everything government does doesn't work, and once in office they do everything possible to ensure those claims become true.
UtopiaPunk · 19h ago
Yeah, I basically agree. The goals of republican politicians are to satisfy the wealthy elite (corporations mostly). Public services, almost by definition, do not make large profits and make it much harder for a private corporation to compete while making large profits themselves. Privatizing public services is a great way to make the rich richer.
The republican politicians then have to craft a message that will get enough normal, not rich people to vote them into office. So they talk about hot-button culture war issues, selecting the positions they must take to get numbers they need (abortion, gun rights, "freedom of speech," gay marriage, immigrants, vaccines, etc etc), all the while reminding their base that the government (except the military and police) is bad.
So that is say, normal people who vote republican can be very nice and reasonable, and they have one or two things that strongly motivates them to vote for a terribly harmful platform.
cthalupa · 21h ago
All you have to do is look at all of the impositions that republican administrations and politicians have placed on USPS and the heaps of denigration they've piled on it to see the truth of the matter.
From forcing them to fund all future retirement funding in a way that no other government agency is (the PAEA) to all of the attacks on it around "mail-in vote fraud," to the constant attacks on the budget issues that they created, it's plainly apparent that the Republicans desire USPS failing and being privatized.
Many of them have also literally said as much. AEI and Cato are big proponents of privatization, Trump has talked about it many times, Wells Fargo has created some proposed frameworks, etc., and the worse it performs as a public entity the better they can make the argument for privatization.
JJMcJ · 21h ago
Friend ordered a widget from China. Needed for a project he was prototyping.
Widget $30
Shipping $60
Shipped via DHL which did have the mechanisms in place to declare contents and pay the tariffs, but not for free.
For people ordering tube socks off of AliBaba, the economics is entirely different and the result is not unexpected.
DanielHB · 21h ago
When Alibaba first became big I remember ordering stuff from there and it taking about one month and a half to arrive in Brazil. Turns out they packaged a lot of shipments together into a single cargo container and then distributed them internally within Brazil.
IMO it should go back to been that way. It is ridiculous to ship these small packages by air. I am not in favor of tariffs, but the shipping needs to be included in the bill.
philwelch · 22h ago
A public good is a good that is both non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Establishing a federal monopoly doesn’t turn the product of that monopoly into a public good. Likewise, a public good can be provided by a non-government entity.
ffsm8 · 22h ago
It's public and good though. ( ๑ ´ • .̫ • ` ๑ )
Jokes aside, I getting hung up on that term in this context feels unnecessary, it was quiet clear what kaitai was talking about from the text he wrote.
philwelch · 21h ago
It’s disingenuous to confuse the meaning of the term “public good” in order to justify government monopolies. Everybody knows that part of the role of the government is to provide “public goods”, but that’s based on how the term “public good” is defined, so it’s dishonest to use that to justify establishing a government monopoly over a non-public good.
doctorpangloss · 21h ago
Have you looked at your mail lately? The USPS is mostly shipping around recycling, like ads. I would happily pay $7 to send a letter 1 time a year if it meant I would see half as much spam.
Surely you see how the spam is subsidizing letters, and then “public good” isn’t so obviously black and white. I mean we could ban spam, tax to pay $6.50 of every $7 letter to enable wedding invitations be $0.50 to mail… but why?
soared · 21h ago
Id rather get the spam and pay $1 for letters. Then lower income people have access to the public good, subsidized by industry. Otherwise sending mail becomes something only rich people do.
UtopiaPunk · 19h ago
My mom lives out-of-state, and she sometimes sends little presents to my kid. My kid then draws a little picture on a postcard and sends it to his grandma.
The post office fucking rules.
mc32 · 22h ago
Especially that underpriced postage advantage (the de minimis exemption) that so many were taking advantage when shipping small shipments from China (and others). Maybe maybe this means fewer items of dubious repute on Amazon.
It was a stupid exception I'm glad they did away with it. I have no idea who in their bright mind saw reason to increase the exception to 800 from 200). Stupid.
Suspension was talked about in April. Announced globally at the end of July and took effect at the end of August.
PhantomHour · 21h ago
That's not the point under contention. Removing the de minimis exemption is a perfectly cromulent policy. It's not even particularly unpopular to remove it.
The problem is that the Trump Administration is plainly incompetent in handling these matters. There wouldn't be this shitshow of sudden haltings in postal services to the US if they'd done the normal thing of announcing the changes with an appropriate lead time for businesses to adjust, rather than suddenly implementing it alongside the constant ping-ponging between yes-tariffs and no-tariffs.
segmondy · 20h ago
I ordered misc gadgets from aliexpress/alibaba to tinker with at least once every 2 months. I'm not buying anything else and moving from hardware experiments to software for now until the dust settles.
jmyeet · 21h ago
I suspect most of this is about the elimination of the de minimis exemption (which the article explains) rather than tariffs per se. A lot of countries previously had 10% tariffs and whether tariffs are 10% or 50% or 100%, that's just a number in a spreadsheet. You will have systems to collect and handle that regardless.
But de minimis elimination suddenly means collecting tariffs on something you previously never did. That's new.
I actually support eliminating de minimis. The rest of the tariffs nonsense we've been going through for 8 months is objetcively insane.
Another aspect to this is international agreements that make domestic delivery free for an international sender who just needs get parcels to a port. Such an agreement was made when deliveries were so one-sided.
So we had a situation where shipping between China and the US was cheap (by sea) and there were no charges for domestic delivery and no tariffs.
baby_souffle · 21h ago
> But de minimis elimination suddenly means collecting tariffs on something you previously never did. That's new.
This is my bet, too.
De minimis was a good idea for high volume low value. Eliminating it is a dumb idea but the 800§ threshold was probably a bit too high.
enraged_camel · 23h ago
Like many others, I'm of the opinion that shit is about to hit the fan in terms of the economy. Too many alarm bells, too many attempts by the admin to cover up and distract from the pillars starting to show cracks.
I hope the recession ends up being smaller in length and magnitude than the 2008-2009 recession because that one wrecked an entire generation in terms of wealth and psychology.
mmastrac · 22h ago
From someone outside the US (Canada) and in a country that's been abused by its giant next-door neighbour -- longer than just the current, explicit abuse -- I kinda hope this recession is deep and hurts badly.
We've already seen some huge, positive structural changes to our economy and a down-and-out, bleeding US will have nothing but positive effects for the rest of us.
I'd have some sympathy but this is an entirely self-inflicted wound and Americans could collectively use a bit of humility.
toast0 · 21h ago
At least in 2024, the US was the largest importer of Canadian exports, by a large margin.
If the US economy is in recession, it likely means less spending in general and so less spending on Canadian goods which is likely a problem for the Canadian economy. I'm sure there would be some benefits for Canada as well, but in a connected world economy, when one major country suffers, it's negative for most other countries.
That said, yeah it'd be nice if we (US) learned a lesson here, but we don't seem to be quick learners.
bbarnett · 20h ago
May as well hang a comment here, some blathering on a Canuck viewpoint, not directing this really at you toast0.
You're not wrong in who imports the most Canadian goods. Or on how we're all interconnected globally. But just for the record, if you take away oil, we import more from the US, than the US from Canada.
And our imports from the US are waaaay down. Funny thing, but when the US talks about annexing Canada, or applying tariffs until we "capitulate and join the US", we get a annoyed. Everywhere I go, especially for groceries, each price tag now has a Canadian or provincial flag on it. They didn't before, but they sure do now. And the outcome is obvious.
And really, it's buying from Canada or what... Middle East dictatorships? Or of course drilling more in US territory, which is fine, but hardly Canada's fault. And the funny thing is, we sell our oil at a massive discount to the US.
Like our copper. And iron. And 100 other things, all typically at a discount compared to world market pricing.
A funny thing has already started to happen, in fact the following video is 2 months old. Instead of trading with the US, and the US trading with the world? We're all just trading with each other instead. When this video was made, Canadian exports were up world wide, and down to the US. And overall?
Exports were just up.
Right now we're feeling some pain from recent tariffs on steel. But we'll just weather it, and bypass the US, like has happened with everything else:
I believe the end result is the rest of the world will just trade with each other, not with the US, resulting in little difference for everyone else. And disaster for the US. Long term of course.
The weirdest part of all of this is, the US specifically wanted more integration. Forced us to take on the FTA then NAFTA in the 80s and so on. Told us we'd be screwed if we didn't comply. And every year since, our real world earnings have gone down per capita, as the US absorbs us economically.
And then some guy shows up and tries to claim we're taking advantage. Huh?! What? You made us take on free trade, forced us to integrate economically, we were worse for it, but.. we're taking advantage??
We're basically more than happy to use these opportunities to cut financial ties with the US, because they current arrangement wasn't working out well anyhow.
toast0 · 19h ago
> Exports were just up.
That's great for you. We (US) messed up worse than I realized.
Your economy will clearly turn out better after this mess (perhaps already), which is great... neighbors helping neighbors and all that. (I don't think we can claim a 3d chess victory of helping the world economy by shooting ourselves in the foot though) I think you would still be better off when the US is not in recession though...
But our economy won't be better off. And even when we eventually return to sanity, we won't be able to return to where we were.
Maybe we can import ketchup and all dressed chips when relations normalize!
> And then some guy shows up and tries to claim we're taking advantage. Huh?! What? You made us take on free trade, forced us to integrate economically, we were worse for it, but.. we're taking advantage??
Yeah... the US clearly benefits from free trade and I don't understand how he thinks we're being taken advantage of by most countries. Like OK, maybe China but it's complicated. Blanket tarrifs are madness, especially when a lot of imports can't be sourced domestically.
bbarnett · 5h ago
I think the biggest issue is the rapidity of introduction, and secondarily, the 'on/off' nature of it. I'm sure it's been said to death, but stable means time to adapt and not random.
Picture Trump sitting in his office. A concerned, confused look is on his face. Clearly his mind is dwelling on an issue, a problem.
After a while, he picks up the phone and dials a number. The phone connects and a person wearing a headset, at a call centre answers.
"Support!", they say, "How may I help you?"
Trump replies "Hi. My tariffs aren't working. Can you tell me what's wrong?"
Support answers "Have you tried turning them off and on again?"
Makes as much sense as anything.
wqaatwt · 22h ago
Unfortunately regardless of whose fault is its hard to imagine Canada will be doing better than the US . It’s just to reliant on US economically.
e.g. just like the tariffs which are hurting Canada much more than the US.
ants_everywhere · 22h ago
Who are you imagining will step into the power vacuum if the US collapses economically?
ehnto · 22h ago
China is by far the most likely candidate, if it navigates its aging demographic issue well.
ptero · 21h ago
China has many internal problems and is not looking for the world dominance, at least not in the medium term. It wants to continue building up its economy, not get involved in conflicts on the other side of the world. Rapid expansions lead to societal changes at home and is something China is really keen to avoid today. My 2c.
zrobotics · 20h ago
How does that square with belt and road? I would agree they aren't looking for world dominance, but from my POV they certainly are looking to be a more major player internationally. Especially in the '3rd world', they will likely end up with more influence than the US since we dropped USAID.
ptero · 19h ago
I see belt and road as orthogonal to the above. This is an initiative focused on a mix of PR and economy. While there are likely many layers of the intent behind it, I think the main one is to establish resource access as well as access to the markets for China exports and enable the stable growth of the Chinese economy.
The success of the initiative still remains to be seen: it is definitely not a failure, but many things can derail it, both inside and outside of China. In either case I see very little desire from the China to throw its non-economic might around outside of what they consider to be part of the Greater China territorial area (Taiwan, South China and Philippine seas). My 2c.
cmxch · 15h ago
And the US will make a point to ensure that doesn’t happen.
bpt3 · 21h ago
That's a huge if, and would not be good news for Canada if it did in fact occur.
ptero · 21h ago
As a US citizen I wish Canada well. US needs serious competition and IMO the ideas of economic world group hugs, globalization benefiting everyone, etc. are no longer working. They may have been net positive initially, but are not anymore.
Unfortunately starting the rebalancing often requires a crisis. I hope the next one will lead to a world with several stronger, independent and competing clusters, not a weaker, beaten up version of the current setup.
cmrdporcupine · 22h ago
> We've already seen some huge, positive structural changes to our economy
None of this is good for working Canadians right now. The shit is about to hit the proverbial fan in this country in the next few months. And as bad as things might get in the US they're likely to be worse here.
Maybe in the long run we'll be on a stronger footing but it could also just lead to even more entrenched monopolies in the Canadian economy, and a victimized Canadian consumer.
Belopolye · 21h ago
"Protectionism for me, but not for thee."
justinrubek · 22h ago
What a vile response. I hope you feel some of the pain that you wish to dish out. There are a lot of us in the US who don't want this bullshit and haven't wanted it. A lot.
ehnto · 22h ago
Then I hope they vote next time.
I am not as optimistic as the parent comment, about a US recession being of benefit to the rest of the world. I think we're all various degrees of fucked if it all falls apart, though it is probably true that other countries will benefit in the long run.
Larrikin · 21h ago
Many of our current problems stem from awful people never suffering any consequences for their actions that actively made the US a worse place for other people.
arp242 · 13h ago
The US spent several months threatening to annex Canada. It's still threatening to annex Greenland AFAIK. Get your house in order before getting all triggered over people being upset about that.
cmrdporcupine · 20h ago
The "but the blue states" line worked in the first Trump presidency.
Canadians aren't buying it now. The last election just made us shake our heads, and the crap that came after, the threats to us about which 90% of Americans treated as either "YEAH!" or "Oh, that's just trolling".
Just over the border outside of Buffalo I see red all over. Even the bluest of states like Vermont have areas that went Trump last election.
Sorry, it's just bleak to watch and when your nation makes war on our economy, there's no need for us to differentiate "baddies" from "goodies". We have no voice in your elections and we can't march on your streets to protest your broken regime.
But you do. Go fix it. So far I'm not impressed by the domestic opposition.
bbarnett · 19h ago
It's not just war on our economy. It's an attempt to steal our country from us. To take our homes, our nation away.
Repeated '51st state' blather. Threats of using tariffs until we capitulate and join. Talk of re-drawing the border because someone thinks it "looks weird". and stealing our land and water by force.
If someone wants to add tariffs to imports, it's silly, dumb, misguided, but well.. the US is free to do that. But try to take our identity away? Our home? Our nation.
This will not be put aside for decades
When you get stabbed by a random nutjob, it hurts, but whatever. When you get stabbed in the back by a friend, a brother? The hurt and pain is like a nova. It will never be forgiven, never put out of mind.
jmpman · 22h ago
It feels like the US individual tax rates are on the left hand side of the larger curve especially for high earners. It’s especially to the left for estate taxes. If these were corrected to maximize revenue, I doubt we would have these gaps. Didn’t hear Elon proposing that.
jmpman · 8h ago
Laffer curve… autocorrect..
bpt3 · 21h ago
The US has the most progressive income tax system in the developed world, and its middle and lower classes are probably the least taxed (due to the combination of the statement above and the lack of a VAT).
I'm not sure where this misconception comes from that the upper class of the US would be more highly taxed elsewhere, but it continues to pollute any attempts to have honest discussions about reform.
quesera · 18h ago
> I'm not sure where this misconception comes from that the upper class of the US would be more highly taxed elsewhere
In the relevant comparison cases, this does not appear to be a misconception.
I am not an expert in global taxation, and with the caveat that tax rates have many complications ... some quick research suggests the following:
A top-bracket earner from Texas would have a higher tax rate in 55 other countries, e.g. Aruba, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, DR Congo, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Morocco, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe. (I skipped some)
A top-bracket earner from California would have a higher tax rate in 11 other countries: Aruba, Austria, Belgium, Canada (the parts where people live), Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, Spain.
(You might argue that "upper class" does not include "earners", which would be a good way to be technically correct but would miss the point.)
Additionally, the capital gains rate is higher in 24 other countries, including most of the obvious ones.
And the top corporate tax rate is higher in 133 other countries.
bpt3 · 18h ago
Yes, most people are thinking about individuals in high income tax states because that's where most high earners live (CA, NY, MD, CT, NJ all come to mind immediately).
So we'll go with your CA example given the site we're on. Only 11 countries have a higher tax rate, and how much higher is it for them vs. how much higher it would be for the median income household in the state?
Also, that CA resident has to pay a 13.3% state capital gains tax, pushing it over 30% (in the best case) in total for high earners, which is higher that the vast majority of developed nations.
Corporate income taxes are a separate beast to some extend, but until recently the US had the second highest rate in the world.
kilroy123 · 22h ago
"History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes."
I think there will be a depression, not just a recession.
I really hope I'm wrong.
throwawayohio · 21h ago
I think you're right, unfortunately. Looking at the causes and the current actions of the US government (and, other governments worldwide tbh), this looks like an almost deliberate attempt to create a new class divide and supply of low-education workers. A depression would cement this. If you aren't already rich by the time it really kicks off, you probably won't make it out.
AnimalMuppet · 21h ago
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
On the other hand, "Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
In the end, it doesn't matter whether these are incompetent or malicious people. These are people who are going to ruin a lot of lives around the world. The trick is, how do we get them out of power (in several countries) before they do too much damage?
AnimalMuppet · 21h ago
From an old cartoon that I remember: "A depression can't happen, and even if it does it will never be called by that name."
davidw · 22h ago
So what's everyone think is a good place for their money to be?
I'm pretty vexxed by this question. To me it seems obvious that a lot of what is happening is going to hurt, both short term (tariffs) and long term (destruction of the US advantage in science), but markets have kept going up and up.
notpachet · 21h ago
> So what's everyone think is a good place for their money to be?
Reinvested into the fabric of your local community.
davidw · 11h ago
I do a lot of that with my time, rather than money, but it won't pay the mortgage.
Something like the Frontier-3. Small cap value, long term treasuries, and gold. That portfolio does amazing at all time periods and still hit 10% a year in the lost decade after the 2000 crash.
orochimaaru · 22h ago
If 80% of postal traffic was commercial and just being used to not pay duty/tariffs, then the tariffs are achieving what was intended.
I don’t like the broad application of tariffs that is implemented today. They should have been better targeted. But this is one area where they are achieving what was intended.
kaitai · 22h ago
Don't worry, it also hits birthday cards from my cousins, Christmas presents from my siblings, care packages with those favorite candies and coffees that aren't sold in the US. My sibling can't send me hand-knit items or hand-me-down kids items, items truly of de minimis monetary value.
It may be accomplishing what was intended -- but I don't think that people in the US (even those paying attention) understand what was intended. The lack of clarity in terms of regulations and collection of fees/tariffs show that it is not about efficiently collecting the $ but instead about breaking the chain of goods, from big business to small business to family ties, and cutting off flow to the USPS, supporting the privatization of the entity.
I agree that the de minimis exemption was being abused at scale.
I'm also salty that my family can't send birthday or Christmas presents, even a home-made card.
Whatever you want to say about this administration, always look one level down for the wholesale reconfiguration of supply chain and international connections that they're aiming for.
swasheck · 22h ago
> It may be accomplishing what was intended -- but I don't think that people in the US (even those paying attention) understand what was intended.
this is what i suspect too. most of his common supporters i interact with parrot the “america first will revitalize the economy and job market” and then when that doesnt happen they do the same with “i’m willing to deal with temporary bit of pain in order to ensure american interests are protected.” these comments are almost always framed against the Obama and Biden administrations and never stand on their own merit (e.g. “unlike biden who …”).
to be perfectly fair, I’m not entirely sure what the ultimate goal is, though. My perception of the character of the person of the president has been dim for many decades so when it’s something that he champions I immediately chalk it up to something that would serve his own self interest above that of any group of other people
dboreham · 21h ago
The goal is to hurt people thereby providing narcissistic supply.
iwontberude · 21h ago
Edit: Sorry I didn’t read the article fully, I had just woken up.
Aspos · 21h ago
Operators suspended their services and now reject US-bound packages.
raesene9 · 21h ago
If all the systems were in place and working correctly then indeed there would be no effect, but the point of the article was that many countries have entirely suspended shipments because they have not got the relevant systems in place to handle the tariffs and regulations required.
two_handfuls · 21h ago
> 88 operators worldwide fully or partially suspending services
maxerickson · 22h ago
Prior to the across the board tariffs, there mostly weren't tariffs to avoid.
The de minimus exception was for the administrative overhead rather than any tax.
blackguardx · 21h ago
The purpose of de minimus is to streamline small shipments, commercial or not. It can't really be abused unless the declared value is false and it is really over $800.
If you are taking issue with Temu-like shipments, that is more of a postal treaty issue.
ghaff · 22h ago
There is probably a subset of people here who ordered consumer goods from Alibaba or wherever but I literally couldn't tell you the last time I ordered something (directly) from somewhere international.
nothercastle · 22h ago
In think a lot of those good are simply not flowing anymore. Suddenly a bunch a products are from companies around the world are no longer viable to sell until current stock is purged and the price of everything goes up.
A lot of vendors are still locked in with pre-tarrif pricing to big box stores so all of them need to go bankrupt before the full price increase takes effect.
wqaatwt · 22h ago
EU did this years ago when they started applying VAT on small packages. You can still easily buy as much Chinese stuff as you lik, though.
Chaos and uncertainty seem like a much bigger issue in the US than forcing foreign retailers to compete on an even footing with local sellers.
swasheck · 22h ago
chaos and uncertainty are the result of what appears to be fundamental ignorance of how complex economic systems work. policies are being drafted and executed based on a cursory understanding of how things work, and undergirded by barely-suppressed racism.
dboreham · 21h ago
Chaos and uncertainty are a feature not a bug.
bee_rider · 21h ago
A VAT is specifically designed to try and distort the market less (by taxing the value added at each step). With a tariff the whole point in the distortion, the goal is to make the imported goods less competitive.
croes · 22h ago
Postal traffic doesn’t mean no tariffs or duty, it just means it was shipped from outside the US.
But now it’s an unknown risk to ship because you don’t know if the tariffs you calculated when you send the package are the same as when it arrives.
Get used to empty shelves and less choices at a higher price.
Lose-Lose-Lose
watwut · 22h ago
It was used to buy stuff from abroad. Now, selling the stuff to USA requires the seller to pay US tax on behalf of the American citizen to US government and then take that tax back from the American citizen.
It is ridiculous. And also, if you are buying/selling low amounts and there is an intentional legal rule that says "small mounts are not taxed", then you are not avoiding anything nor using a loophole. You are legitimately buying a Canadian or Mexican item.
4ndrewl · 22h ago
Surely it's "the Mexicans" that are going to pay the tariffs? /s
michaelmrose · 21h ago
Why would 80% of postal traffic NOT be commercial in a world with phones, video conferencing and email?
PhantomHour · 20h ago
> I hope the recession ends up being smaller in length and magnitude than the 2008-2009 recession
Not a chance. Were it just the tariffs, the recession would be quite small. The tariffs might even be cancelled if the SCOTUS remembers to do it's job.
But it's not just the tariffs.
The US economy is currently being kept afloat by AI R&D and infrastructure spending. It's stock market kept alive by 7 companies who are all neck deep in AI hype.
This not only disguises the malaise in the rest of the US economy, it's a bubble. Everyone knows it. Nvidia's the only one making any money and even they are now relying on vendor financing and other such red flags. Even one who believes that the technology of AI is here to stay, has to face the reality that it's not a golden goose of infinite dollar bills.
We're looking at something that's going to be at least as bad as the Dotcom crash. 'At least' because while the bubble is of only comparable size, other conditions are much worse.
Trump is trying to seize the fed. Big Tech is tearing the copper wiring out of it's own walls to keep AI going a little longer, and their plans for cutting costs is to dramatically increase H1Bs and outsourcing. (One wonders if there might be a non-economic reason behind this, given it's one specific country they're seeking to hire from >.>)
And underneath it all: A timebomb. Much, much, much more of consumer spending in 2025 is from pensioners than it was in 2000. When the stock market eats a 50% loss and stay there for a decade, those pensions will be cut dramatically. This drives down consumer spending, in turn driving down the stock market, a vicious cycle.
pessimizer · 22h ago
It's long overdue. I'm not sure exactly how long bitcoin, tech stock speculation and private equity rollups were supposed to support an actual economy.
The question is whether you impose protectionism before or after you crater.
> I hope the recession ends up being smaller in length and magnitude than the 2008-2009 recession because that one wrecked an entire generation in terms of wealth and psychology.
It's going to be longer, and worse. Especially since there's no one in the ruling class that doesn't think that the way to get out of recessions is the massive-scale disinvestment that comes with austerity. We only got out of the last one because while America was preaching austerity, it was giving handouts to every wealthy person in America, while Europe was actually dumb enough to do austerity for real.
Upper-middle class people will be fine. During covid their wealth doubled through no particular effort of their own. It was just a gift from taxpayers to show them we love them.
pacomerh · 17h ago
My friends from other countries aren't coming anymore, fearing they'll be wrongfully detained. It's a sad situation. I never thought anything could be worse than the COVID era, and the worst part is that some people actually cheer for this. This isn't speculation it's really happening and it's pretty disheartening.
jmclnx · 23h ago
I wonder how that will impact the USPS ? I tend to think it will help their bottom line a bit due to the international price agreements many countries have.
Now, UPS and FedeX and other such companies, I think they could be in for a world of hurt if this is really true and continues for a while.
gpapilion · 22h ago
I think that the private carriers are more likely to be helped by this, since they will manage the paperwork.
It’s more likely a set of products that were shipping directly from factories disappears from the market. For example, the direct from factory Halloween costume.
It could end up being a step backwards in living standards and access to daily luxuries.
2b3a51 · 21h ago
Old man in a different country: we used to make Hallows'een costumes out of old shirts worn backwards and sacks and stuff. Yes, I'm going back half a century plus but it was fun and involved time with parents.
Has anyone done a study on the environmental effect of not flying all that stuff to the US anymore? Is it notable, or an irrelevant blip?
gooob · 20h ago
good question
1oooqooq · 21h ago
the gang solves plastic pollution.
gooob · 20h ago
yes! good way to look at it
karakot · 17h ago
No, all that useless shit will be sold by wal-mart etc, instead of thousands of small businesses.
xyst · 22h ago
demented don and pedophile of the united states strikes again.
This administration continues to find new ways to make this country shittier for the common man. Lower courts recently found his tariffs to be illegal but given the corrupt state of the SCOTUS. It’s only a matter of time until it’s overturned.
It’s sad that the best we can do is _delay_ the damage this demented fool is doing to this country.
cmxch · 14h ago
Only for left leaning definitions of “common man”.
swasheck · 22h ago
maybe there’s a new application of delay, defer, deny
linotype · 20h ago
Oh darn, people buying less cheap shit.
xhkkffbf · 21h ago
As much as I like getting cheap things for next to nothing, I have always been horrified about the way that the Chinese firms were able to price things at next to nothing on eBay. Why? All because the postal treaty allowed the Chinese post office to dump all of the delivery costs on the Americans.
The costs need to be apportioned accurately and the Chinese firms were getting a great deal on the backs of the regular postal users in the US.
scottbez1 · 20h ago
This used to be true but was adjusted with a correction to the internation postage rates. These days things like AliExpress have stopped using local postal delivery and instead use their own local logistics partners for last mile delivery, and it's surprisingly still just about as cheap.
I'm guessing these last mile deliveries are gig workers, considering I seem to get deliveries from people in unmarked personal vehicles nowadays.
The US is already far behind the economies of scale of Chinese production, and has higher labor costs and higher regulatory costs (both good and bad), so it's fundamentally not possible to compete on price alone, regardless of any postal treaty issues, which, again, are not a huge factor these days.
The new logistics services have been pretty interesting, and don't bode well for UPS/FedEx who have been content to focus only on large packages and charge ridiculous fees for a long time without innovating.
karaterobot · 21h ago
If it turns out the dip is caused by a lag between the implementation of new tariff rules and the implementation of processes to handle them, and that in a short time traffic to the U.S. goes back to essentially its prior levels, what will that mean to the commenters in this thread? All of the hyper-rational, fact-based people in this thread, I mean. Because that seems like the most likely outcome to me.
overfeed · 18h ago
Lot's of small businesses dependent on imports are already shutting down. I know dropshippers are unpopular, but the policy flip-flops are affecting more than that. A lot of low-volume, custom-designed niche products[1] have disappeared, and won't come back when the tariff payment mechanisms are implemented
1. e.g. PCBs for vintage computers, and some potential kickstarter projects are now non-viable.
bitshiftfaced · 19h ago
Presumably it should have some effect for no other reason than how there's no longer a de minimis exemption.
Tadpole9181 · 19h ago
I mean, you've biased answers here.
Does "hyper-rational" allow for arguments about how this affects soft power and the relationships with foreign businesses? Does it allow adding additional tallies in the ongoing list of reasons other countries should not trust us or the dollar as a reserve?
The US economy is currently being operated by a single man, who has no actual long-term plan and randomly flips levers and switches beyond his legal power to do so. He randomly targets companies and policies based on whoever last spoke to him or whatever social media post he saw at 3 AM. And now he's shut down an entire lane of trade for several months. Just... Dead.
Many businesses will simply not take US orders anymore after this fiasco. Some may go out of business by the time things come back.
And that's before any discussion about the actual de minimus changes. Changes which will effectively kill the ability for the average American citizen to custom order anything from any other country.
As an example: in my part of the woods, women don't really like to buy from retail stores anymore. The quality is crap and they're often ugly clothes with inconsistent sizing. So a lot of them would be custom stuff from Etsy, slightly more expensive but MUCH higher quality and made to fit. A lot of it came from eastern Europe.
That market is dead. Guess it's back to cheap Chinese T-shirts.
But don't, worry 5 billionaires came to the white house and worshipped Trump on camera like some weird North Korea / Stalinistic shit.
conscion · 17h ago
> And that's before any discussion about the actual de minimus changes. Changes which will effectively kill the ability for the average American citizen to custom order anything from any other country.
How does it kill the ability to custom order? My understanding of removing de minimus is only that the tariffs now apply to all orders. And because most tariffs now have been set ~30%, an order that was previously $100 is now $130. It seems like many willing to order custom made clothing would also be willing to pay an extra 30%.
Tadpole9181 · 16h ago
No, now you also need to go through formal customs entry and pay the other related fees. I think the minimum flat duty fee is $80-200 depending on country, so that'd be a $50 shirt becoming a $130 shirt.
Or they can switch courier, but that comes with the ad valorem tax and then that couriers brokerage fees - at least $30 dollars (though they'll probably raise it now that they don't have to compete). So a $50 shirt is now $85.
On top of that is the extra paperwork the seller now has to go through. And who knows if the tariff will change on the way, so maybe throw on a surcharge for Americans or just refuse the orders entirely.
> It seems like many willing to order custom made clothing would also be willing to pay an extra 30%.
These aren't rich people. They're paying a little extra already to avoid the poor tax of cheap, unethical crap they have to replace more often. Even just 30% is a huge markup because now instead of being double the price, it's almost triple the price of the worse stuff where those fees are amortized.
It's hard for me to believe I'm hearing, on HN of all places, "it's just 30% more expensive".
cmxch · 15h ago
“ Many businesses will simply not take US orders anymore after this fiasco. Some may go out of business by the time things come back.”
Oh they will, they just will go through an intermediary.
> 88 operators worldwide fully or partially suspending services, the Universal Postal Union.. said operators didn't have enough time to prepare for the changes, or to put in place mechanisms to collect the duties and establish a link with the relevant US authorities.. The agency is working on "the rapid development of a new technical solution that will help get mail moving to the United States again," UPU Director General Masahiko Metoki said
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2025/08/26/have-for...
A statistically significant drop, but not exactly plummetting.
What I don't want to gamble is with my life and freedom. Will I get detained because of spicy JD Vance memes I posted or not? Nobody knows!
If the latter, then indeed it's not dramatic. But if the former, then the number of contingent trips to the US might have dropped a lot, and is hiding mixed in with regular unaffected traffic of USians.
2. Could not care less about “climate issues.” A better reason for video conferencing is to avoid airports and especially dealing with border control clowns asking the same silly questions every trip, and the McDonald’s rejects called TSA.
However, in Canada we remain in the midst of a long work-to-rule strike by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) against Canada Post (CP). The biggest issue in this strike is that there is a very wide gap between what CUPW is demanding (in terms of pay increases, protection of workers, maintenance of routes) and what CP is offering.
CP had been losing billions of dollars (even prior to the strike) and the situation continues to worsen as consumers lose confidence in the reliability of CP's parcel service, due to the strike. CP wants to close a lot of post offices, complete the phase-out of door-to-door postal service in favour of community mailboxes (which are already in use for more than half of households), and even reduce delivery frequency to less than 5 days per week.
I actually support these cost-cutting measures by CP because I, like many other Canadians, receive almost zero useful mail by post these days. Almost all of the mail I receive is advertising (junk mail), with the few exceptions being bills and statements from banks and the like (the latter of which ought to be phased out to fully electronic since I only bank through mobile apps anyway).
And so I'm left wondering what exactly is the public good in the postal service anyway? It seems more like a subsidy for a handful of advertisers and banks as well as a jobs program for postal workers. I send actual letters by mail so infrequently that I wouldn't mind paying $10 to send one by courier. But that isn't even within the space of proposals (shutting down CP completely)!
The most extreme proposal would be for CP to eliminate door-to-door service (community mailboxes only) and to switch to weekly delivery only, instead of daily. That would not affect the vast majority of Canadians in the slightest. The only ones who would be truly affected are those with mobility issues (disabilities or the elderly) who are unable to walk down the street to the community mailbox. Fortunately, there is already a service in place for providing mobility assistance to these people!
Honestly that sounds like some good ways to reduce costs and carbon emissions. For the elderly there would need to be some considerations made. I live in the US but in large apartment buildings here there’s a couple of mailrooms for hundreds of units, I imagine it’s significantly more efficient than delivering to each unit.
I've been living here four years and met some really wonderful Americans, both Democrat and Republican, yet I don't think I've met a single one who thinks the way you're presenting. This seems like a pretty bleak way to view your country's politics, respectfully.
The republican politicians then have to craft a message that will get enough normal, not rich people to vote them into office. So they talk about hot-button culture war issues, selecting the positions they must take to get numbers they need (abortion, gun rights, "freedom of speech," gay marriage, immigrants, vaccines, etc etc), all the while reminding their base that the government (except the military and police) is bad.
So that is say, normal people who vote republican can be very nice and reasonable, and they have one or two things that strongly motivates them to vote for a terribly harmful platform.
From forcing them to fund all future retirement funding in a way that no other government agency is (the PAEA) to all of the attacks on it around "mail-in vote fraud," to the constant attacks on the budget issues that they created, it's plainly apparent that the Republicans desire USPS failing and being privatized.
Many of them have also literally said as much. AEI and Cato are big proponents of privatization, Trump has talked about it many times, Wells Fargo has created some proposed frameworks, etc., and the worse it performs as a public entity the better they can make the argument for privatization.
Widget $30
Shipping $60
Shipped via DHL which did have the mechanisms in place to declare contents and pay the tariffs, but not for free.
For people ordering tube socks off of AliBaba, the economics is entirely different and the result is not unexpected.
IMO it should go back to been that way. It is ridiculous to ship these small packages by air. I am not in favor of tariffs, but the shipping needs to be included in the bill.
Jokes aside, I getting hung up on that term in this context feels unnecessary, it was quiet clear what kaitai was talking about from the text he wrote.
Surely you see how the spam is subsidizing letters, and then “public good” isn’t so obviously black and white. I mean we could ban spam, tax to pay $6.50 of every $7 letter to enable wedding invitations be $0.50 to mail… but why?
The post office fucking rules.
It was a stupid exception I'm glad they did away with it. I have no idea who in their bright mind saw reason to increase the exception to 800 from 200). Stupid.
Suspension was talked about in April. Announced globally at the end of July and took effect at the end of August.
The problem is that the Trump Administration is plainly incompetent in handling these matters. There wouldn't be this shitshow of sudden haltings in postal services to the US if they'd done the normal thing of announcing the changes with an appropriate lead time for businesses to adjust, rather than suddenly implementing it alongside the constant ping-ponging between yes-tariffs and no-tariffs.
But de minimis elimination suddenly means collecting tariffs on something you previously never did. That's new.
I actually support eliminating de minimis. The rest of the tariffs nonsense we've been going through for 8 months is objetcively insane.
Another aspect to this is international agreements that make domestic delivery free for an international sender who just needs get parcels to a port. Such an agreement was made when deliveries were so one-sided.
So we had a situation where shipping between China and the US was cheap (by sea) and there were no charges for domestic delivery and no tariffs.
This is my bet, too.
De minimis was a good idea for high volume low value. Eliminating it is a dumb idea but the 800§ threshold was probably a bit too high.
I hope the recession ends up being smaller in length and magnitude than the 2008-2009 recession because that one wrecked an entire generation in terms of wealth and psychology.
We've already seen some huge, positive structural changes to our economy and a down-and-out, bleeding US will have nothing but positive effects for the rest of us.
I'd have some sympathy but this is an entirely self-inflicted wound and Americans could collectively use a bit of humility.
If the US economy is in recession, it likely means less spending in general and so less spending on Canadian goods which is likely a problem for the Canadian economy. I'm sure there would be some benefits for Canada as well, but in a connected world economy, when one major country suffers, it's negative for most other countries.
That said, yeah it'd be nice if we (US) learned a lesson here, but we don't seem to be quick learners.
You're not wrong in who imports the most Canadian goods. Or on how we're all interconnected globally. But just for the record, if you take away oil, we import more from the US, than the US from Canada.
And our imports from the US are waaaay down. Funny thing, but when the US talks about annexing Canada, or applying tariffs until we "capitulate and join the US", we get a annoyed. Everywhere I go, especially for groceries, each price tag now has a Canadian or provincial flag on it. They didn't before, but they sure do now. And the outcome is obvious.
And really, it's buying from Canada or what... Middle East dictatorships? Or of course drilling more in US territory, which is fine, but hardly Canada's fault. And the funny thing is, we sell our oil at a massive discount to the US.
Like our copper. And iron. And 100 other things, all typically at a discount compared to world market pricing.
A funny thing has already started to happen, in fact the following video is 2 months old. Instead of trading with the US, and the US trading with the world? We're all just trading with each other instead. When this video was made, Canadian exports were up world wide, and down to the US. And overall?
Exports were just up.
Right now we're feeling some pain from recent tariffs on steel. But we'll just weather it, and bypass the US, like has happened with everything else:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCwQfSbAyeQ
I believe the end result is the rest of the world will just trade with each other, not with the US, resulting in little difference for everyone else. And disaster for the US. Long term of course.
The weirdest part of all of this is, the US specifically wanted more integration. Forced us to take on the FTA then NAFTA in the 80s and so on. Told us we'd be screwed if we didn't comply. And every year since, our real world earnings have gone down per capita, as the US absorbs us economically.
And then some guy shows up and tries to claim we're taking advantage. Huh?! What? You made us take on free trade, forced us to integrate economically, we were worse for it, but.. we're taking advantage??
We're basically more than happy to use these opportunities to cut financial ties with the US, because they current arrangement wasn't working out well anyhow.
That's great for you. We (US) messed up worse than I realized.
Your economy will clearly turn out better after this mess (perhaps already), which is great... neighbors helping neighbors and all that. (I don't think we can claim a 3d chess victory of helping the world economy by shooting ourselves in the foot though) I think you would still be better off when the US is not in recession though...
But our economy won't be better off. And even when we eventually return to sanity, we won't be able to return to where we were.
Maybe we can import ketchup and all dressed chips when relations normalize!
> And then some guy shows up and tries to claim we're taking advantage. Huh?! What? You made us take on free trade, forced us to integrate economically, we were worse for it, but.. we're taking advantage??
Yeah... the US clearly benefits from free trade and I don't understand how he thinks we're being taken advantage of by most countries. Like OK, maybe China but it's complicated. Blanket tarrifs are madness, especially when a lot of imports can't be sourced domestically.
Picture Trump sitting in his office. A concerned, confused look is on his face. Clearly his mind is dwelling on an issue, a problem.
After a while, he picks up the phone and dials a number. The phone connects and a person wearing a headset, at a call centre answers.
"Support!", they say, "How may I help you?"
Trump replies "Hi. My tariffs aren't working. Can you tell me what's wrong?"
Support answers "Have you tried turning them off and on again?"
Makes as much sense as anything.
e.g. just like the tariffs which are hurting Canada much more than the US.
The success of the initiative still remains to be seen: it is definitely not a failure, but many things can derail it, both inside and outside of China. In either case I see very little desire from the China to throw its non-economic might around outside of what they consider to be part of the Greater China territorial area (Taiwan, South China and Philippine seas). My 2c.
Unfortunately starting the rebalancing often requires a crisis. I hope the next one will lead to a world with several stronger, independent and competing clusters, not a weaker, beaten up version of the current setup.
None of this is good for working Canadians right now. The shit is about to hit the proverbial fan in this country in the next few months. And as bad as things might get in the US they're likely to be worse here.
Maybe in the long run we'll be on a stronger footing but it could also just lead to even more entrenched monopolies in the Canadian economy, and a victimized Canadian consumer.
I am not as optimistic as the parent comment, about a US recession being of benefit to the rest of the world. I think we're all various degrees of fucked if it all falls apart, though it is probably true that other countries will benefit in the long run.
Canadians aren't buying it now. The last election just made us shake our heads, and the crap that came after, the threats to us about which 90% of Americans treated as either "YEAH!" or "Oh, that's just trolling".
Just over the border outside of Buffalo I see red all over. Even the bluest of states like Vermont have areas that went Trump last election.
Sorry, it's just bleak to watch and when your nation makes war on our economy, there's no need for us to differentiate "baddies" from "goodies". We have no voice in your elections and we can't march on your streets to protest your broken regime.
But you do. Go fix it. So far I'm not impressed by the domestic opposition.
Repeated '51st state' blather. Threats of using tariffs until we capitulate and join. Talk of re-drawing the border because someone thinks it "looks weird". and stealing our land and water by force.
If someone wants to add tariffs to imports, it's silly, dumb, misguided, but well.. the US is free to do that. But try to take our identity away? Our home? Our nation.
This will not be put aside for decades
When you get stabbed by a random nutjob, it hurts, but whatever. When you get stabbed in the back by a friend, a brother? The hurt and pain is like a nova. It will never be forgiven, never put out of mind.
I'm not sure where this misconception comes from that the upper class of the US would be more highly taxed elsewhere, but it continues to pollute any attempts to have honest discussions about reform.
In the relevant comparison cases, this does not appear to be a misconception.
I am not an expert in global taxation, and with the caveat that tax rates have many complications ... some quick research suggests the following:
A top-bracket earner from Texas would have a higher tax rate in 55 other countries, e.g. Aruba, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, DR Congo, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Morocco, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe. (I skipped some)
A top-bracket earner from California would have a higher tax rate in 11 other countries: Aruba, Austria, Belgium, Canada (the parts where people live), Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, Spain.
(You might argue that "upper class" does not include "earners", which would be a good way to be technically correct but would miss the point.)
Additionally, the capital gains rate is higher in 24 other countries, including most of the obvious ones.
And the top corporate tax rate is higher in 133 other countries.
So we'll go with your CA example given the site we're on. Only 11 countries have a higher tax rate, and how much higher is it for them vs. how much higher it would be for the median income household in the state?
Also, that CA resident has to pay a 13.3% state capital gains tax, pushing it over 30% (in the best case) in total for high earners, which is higher that the vast majority of developed nations.
Corporate income taxes are a separate beast to some extend, but until recently the US had the second highest rate in the world.
I think there will be a depression, not just a recession.
I really hope I'm wrong.
On the other hand, "Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
In the end, it doesn't matter whether these are incompetent or malicious people. These are people who are going to ruin a lot of lives around the world. The trick is, how do we get them out of power (in several countries) before they do too much damage?
I'm pretty vexxed by this question. To me it seems obvious that a lot of what is happening is going to hurt, both short term (tariffs) and long term (destruction of the US advantage in science), but markets have kept going up and up.
Reinvested into the fabric of your local community.
https://portfoliocharts.com/2021/12/16/three-secret-ingredie...
Something like the Frontier-3. Small cap value, long term treasuries, and gold. That portfolio does amazing at all time periods and still hit 10% a year in the lost decade after the 2000 crash.
I don’t like the broad application of tariffs that is implemented today. They should have been better targeted. But this is one area where they are achieving what was intended.
It may be accomplishing what was intended -- but I don't think that people in the US (even those paying attention) understand what was intended. The lack of clarity in terms of regulations and collection of fees/tariffs show that it is not about efficiently collecting the $ but instead about breaking the chain of goods, from big business to small business to family ties, and cutting off flow to the USPS, supporting the privatization of the entity.
I agree that the de minimis exemption was being abused at scale.
I'm also salty that my family can't send birthday or Christmas presents, even a home-made card.
Whatever you want to say about this administration, always look one level down for the wholesale reconfiguration of supply chain and international connections that they're aiming for.
this is what i suspect too. most of his common supporters i interact with parrot the “america first will revitalize the economy and job market” and then when that doesnt happen they do the same with “i’m willing to deal with temporary bit of pain in order to ensure american interests are protected.” these comments are almost always framed against the Obama and Biden administrations and never stand on their own merit (e.g. “unlike biden who …”).
to be perfectly fair, I’m not entirely sure what the ultimate goal is, though. My perception of the character of the person of the president has been dim for many decades so when it’s something that he champions I immediately chalk it up to something that would serve his own self interest above that of any group of other people
The de minimus exception was for the administrative overhead rather than any tax.
If you are taking issue with Temu-like shipments, that is more of a postal treaty issue.
A lot of vendors are still locked in with pre-tarrif pricing to big box stores so all of them need to go bankrupt before the full price increase takes effect.
Chaos and uncertainty seem like a much bigger issue in the US than forcing foreign retailers to compete on an even footing with local sellers.
But now it’s an unknown risk to ship because you don’t know if the tariffs you calculated when you send the package are the same as when it arrives.
Get used to empty shelves and less choices at a higher price.
Lose-Lose-Lose
It is ridiculous. And also, if you are buying/selling low amounts and there is an intentional legal rule that says "small mounts are not taxed", then you are not avoiding anything nor using a loophole. You are legitimately buying a Canadian or Mexican item.
Not a chance. Were it just the tariffs, the recession would be quite small. The tariffs might even be cancelled if the SCOTUS remembers to do it's job.
But it's not just the tariffs.
The US economy is currently being kept afloat by AI R&D and infrastructure spending. It's stock market kept alive by 7 companies who are all neck deep in AI hype.
This not only disguises the malaise in the rest of the US economy, it's a bubble. Everyone knows it. Nvidia's the only one making any money and even they are now relying on vendor financing and other such red flags. Even one who believes that the technology of AI is here to stay, has to face the reality that it's not a golden goose of infinite dollar bills.
We're looking at something that's going to be at least as bad as the Dotcom crash. 'At least' because while the bubble is of only comparable size, other conditions are much worse.
Trump is trying to seize the fed. Big Tech is tearing the copper wiring out of it's own walls to keep AI going a little longer, and their plans for cutting costs is to dramatically increase H1Bs and outsourcing. (One wonders if there might be a non-economic reason behind this, given it's one specific country they're seeking to hire from >.>)
And underneath it all: A timebomb. Much, much, much more of consumer spending in 2025 is from pensioners than it was in 2000. When the stock market eats a 50% loss and stay there for a decade, those pensions will be cut dramatically. This drives down consumer spending, in turn driving down the stock market, a vicious cycle.
The question is whether you impose protectionism before or after you crater.
> I hope the recession ends up being smaller in length and magnitude than the 2008-2009 recession because that one wrecked an entire generation in terms of wealth and psychology.
It's going to be longer, and worse. Especially since there's no one in the ruling class that doesn't think that the way to get out of recessions is the massive-scale disinvestment that comes with austerity. We only got out of the last one because while America was preaching austerity, it was giving handouts to every wealthy person in America, while Europe was actually dumb enough to do austerity for real.
Upper-middle class people will be fine. During covid their wealth doubled through no particular effort of their own. It was just a gift from taxpayers to show them we love them.
Now, UPS and FedeX and other such companies, I think they could be in for a world of hurt if this is really true and continues for a while.
It’s more likely a set of products that were shipping directly from factories disappears from the market. For example, the direct from factory Halloween costume.
It could end up being a step backwards in living standards and access to daily luxuries.
Best of luck.
This administration continues to find new ways to make this country shittier for the common man. Lower courts recently found his tariffs to be illegal but given the corrupt state of the SCOTUS. It’s only a matter of time until it’s overturned.
It’s sad that the best we can do is _delay_ the damage this demented fool is doing to this country.
The costs need to be apportioned accurately and the Chinese firms were getting a great deal on the backs of the regular postal users in the US.
I'm guessing these last mile deliveries are gig workers, considering I seem to get deliveries from people in unmarked personal vehicles nowadays.
The US is already far behind the economies of scale of Chinese production, and has higher labor costs and higher regulatory costs (both good and bad), so it's fundamentally not possible to compete on price alone, regardless of any postal treaty issues, which, again, are not a huge factor these days.
The new logistics services have been pretty interesting, and don't bode well for UPS/FedEx who have been content to focus only on large packages and charge ridiculous fees for a long time without innovating.
1. e.g. PCBs for vintage computers, and some potential kickstarter projects are now non-viable.
Does "hyper-rational" allow for arguments about how this affects soft power and the relationships with foreign businesses? Does it allow adding additional tallies in the ongoing list of reasons other countries should not trust us or the dollar as a reserve?
The US economy is currently being operated by a single man, who has no actual long-term plan and randomly flips levers and switches beyond his legal power to do so. He randomly targets companies and policies based on whoever last spoke to him or whatever social media post he saw at 3 AM. And now he's shut down an entire lane of trade for several months. Just... Dead.
Many businesses will simply not take US orders anymore after this fiasco. Some may go out of business by the time things come back.
And that's before any discussion about the actual de minimus changes. Changes which will effectively kill the ability for the average American citizen to custom order anything from any other country.
As an example: in my part of the woods, women don't really like to buy from retail stores anymore. The quality is crap and they're often ugly clothes with inconsistent sizing. So a lot of them would be custom stuff from Etsy, slightly more expensive but MUCH higher quality and made to fit. A lot of it came from eastern Europe.
That market is dead. Guess it's back to cheap Chinese T-shirts.
But don't, worry 5 billionaires came to the white house and worshipped Trump on camera like some weird North Korea / Stalinistic shit.
How does it kill the ability to custom order? My understanding of removing de minimus is only that the tariffs now apply to all orders. And because most tariffs now have been set ~30%, an order that was previously $100 is now $130. It seems like many willing to order custom made clothing would also be willing to pay an extra 30%.
Or they can switch courier, but that comes with the ad valorem tax and then that couriers brokerage fees - at least $30 dollars (though they'll probably raise it now that they don't have to compete). So a $50 shirt is now $85.
On top of that is the extra paperwork the seller now has to go through. And who knows if the tariff will change on the way, so maybe throw on a surcharge for Americans or just refuse the orders entirely.
> It seems like many willing to order custom made clothing would also be willing to pay an extra 30%.
These aren't rich people. They're paying a little extra already to avoid the poor tax of cheap, unethical crap they have to replace more often. Even just 30% is a huge markup because now instead of being double the price, it's almost triple the price of the worse stuff where those fees are amortized.
It's hard for me to believe I'm hearing, on HN of all places, "it's just 30% more expensive".
Oh they will, they just will go through an intermediary.