Adjusting to the new regulations is proving to be quite challenging for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the US Postal Service. The Postal Service temporarily halted the acceptance of packages from China and Hong Kong on Tuesday as it worked to cope with the surge of packages from China that now require more in-depth inspections.
On Wednesday, the CBP issued guidance alerting the public that packages sent from China to the US must now undergo “formal entry.” This procedure demands extensive documentation, including details about the contents’ value, and incurs increased processing fees.
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Currently, it appears that shipping companies are bearing most of the burden created by the new trade regulations, and not all are pleased with the situation. In response to Trump’s tariffs, two logistics companies, DHL Hong Kong and the Hongkong Post, have declared they will no longer accept individual packages destined for the United States. The owner of a trucking firm in Alberta, Canada, mentioned to WIRED that he plans to initially cover the duties himself and later charge his clients.
The removal of the $800 duty-free exemption is anticipated to affect Chinese budget shopping sites like Shein and Temu the most severely; however, numerous smaller ecommerce vendors are also feeling the repercussions. Brands selling mechanical keyboards, underwear, and tea have all alerted their customers about possible shipping delays and price hikes in light of the new tariffs, according to images shared on Reddit.
Miguel Schraeder, owner of a Canadian company specializing in board game accessories, reported that several of his customers have been prompted by UPS to pay hefty import duties on goods imported from China. His company sources its products from Chinese manufacturers and ships them out of Canada, yet they still faced unexpected import duties.
In one instance Schraeder shared with WIRED, a customer who placed a $30 order on Friday prior to the tariffs’ announcement was later asked by UPS to pay $52.22 to receive the package, which exceeds 170 percent of the original item’s cost.
He noted that until the tariffs took effect, he was able to ship to US customers without incurring duties. In fact, he encouraged his customers to place orders before the previous weekend to avoid these charges, but still found himself facing fees.
According to Schraeder, he spoke with his usual UPS contact, who indicated that there are hundreds of thousands of packages being held up for similar reasons. “It seems they don’t have the infrastructure set up yet to correctly manage this,” Schraeder said, specifically addressing UPS’s ground shipping system. “They are simply applying the equivalent fees as if each package were valued at $800. That might explain why people are seeing such high charges on lower-cost items. They did say they are looking into a solution, but they can’t guarantee anything.”
Schraeder anticipates suffering financial losses due to this confusion because customers might refuse to pay the import fees and return the products at the seller’s cost. Consequently, he plans to temporarily pause sales to the US.
A complicating factor for some small business owners is that Trump’s tariffs are aimed at the original manufacturing country, meaning it doesn’t matter if products made in China have been stored in a different country for years before arriving in the US. “My issue is that second-hand clothing often lacks labels or has them that are unreadable,” stated Brown, a business owner in the second-hand clothing sector.
Like many others, Brown experienced his packages being rejected at the US-Canadian border on Tuesday. He can apply for formal entry and attempt to ship the products to the US again, but he believes it will be too costly and time-consuming. “For the immediate future, I’m removing all made-in-China items and putting my sales platforms into vacation mode to prevent transactions. It’s drastic, but I feel it’s the only fair choice for my customers,” he expressed.
