We regret but have to temporary suspend the shipments to USA

I manufacture steel/aluminum goods for the US and I have direct experience with these tariffs. Let me explain why it must be this way and how it's actually supposed to work. This is not a defense of the tariffs, just an explanation.

First of all, if you want to use tariffs to boost domestic manufacturing, you must also tax the steel/al content of finished (or intermediate) goods. Otherwise, you put your local producers at a disadvantage, making the tariffs worse.

If you only tariff raw materials, then an american manufacturer has to pay either US steel prices or imported steel + tariff to manufacture, but a company overseas can use the cheaper foreign steel.

So if you want to tax raw materials, then you also want to tax those goods where raw materials are an important part of the cost.

The US has a catalog called the "Harmonized Tariff Schedule" (HTS) which is a catalog of basically everything under the sun [0]. When the steel & AL tariffs were announced, they also published a list of all the HTS codes where the steel/al content would also be taxed.

Last week the US published a revised list of HTS codes to which these tariffs apply, and they added about 400 items to them. For example, the aluminum content of cans is now taxed when it wasn't before.

Flexport has a very cool (and useful!) tariff simulator where you can look up any item and it will tell you if the steel/al content will be subject to these tariffs: https://tariffs.flexport.com

[0]: https://hts.usitc.gov/

Yes, it's a very logical part of a tariff regime, and tariffs penalize domestic manufacturers without it.

But wow, are tariffs (and other micro taxes) disruptive on getting things done efficiently.

I mean...they're still punished by tariffs with these changes, but they're also punished without them.

This all makes a lot of sense and is also a great reason why sudden tariffs like these are absolutely bat shit insane. It's exactly what an incompetent PHB would do.

Is there a reason they can’t offer a flat fee? So, customs could say that since CPUs typically contain X% steel, they’ll charge that much plus Y extra; if you don’t want to pay Y you can still give the exact amount instead.

I don't think Olimex understands tariffs. Maybe they shouldn't have to. But you don't have to specify the breakdown of your PCB by mineral content. That's what the harmonized tariffs schedules are all about, to account for this very issue.

> Otherwise, you put your local producers at a disadvantage, making the tariffs worse.

Disadvantaging local producers is how tariffs work! Local producers would then turn to local suppliers who don't have any additional taxes applied. Tariffs are a very blunt instrument, and clumsily attempting to assuage 2nd order pain points will only give rise to 3rd (and higher) order effects.

The lesson here is: don't fuck around with multivariate dynamic systems that have achieved stability: there won't be any one knob you can twist to get a result you want on a single parameter. It'll be worse if you pick one knob and turn it all the way to 11.

>But wow, are tariffs (and other micro taxes) disruptive on getting things done efficiently.

Well, that depends on what you are getting done.

If your objective is solely to get a product done, the most efficient way is probably going to involve terrible salaries plus ample disregard for the environment and human life. Anything else is going to be disruptive to that end.

I have the problem since weeks. An electric device made for me with billing isnt in the catallog of regular stuff or whatever and now they need to figure out what it could be because my description is not enough -.-

> Otherwise, you put your local producers at a disadvantage, making the tariffs worse.

Don't some tariffs motivate people to do processing offshore?

If I import 1kg of copper and machine/etch/whatever it down into products, with some wastage, maybe I should just do everything offshore and only import the final articles with 500g of copper in it.

At some point, higher tariffs on input materials will overtake the higher value of finished goods and you might as well just manufacture the whole thing offshore anyway.

Yes, but it's not how the US government wants them to work. So they legislate more to close the bugs and make it work the way they want.

It's a known flawless way to evolve code... Never revise, never delete, add enough so the tests pass.

But I don't think your lesson is reasonable. Fucking with multivariate dynamic systems is what governments do. And it's well settled that in the absence of the government doing that, everything goes to hell quite quickly.

Aluminum in beer cans has been subject to aluminum tariffs since April (was 25% initially and was upped to 50%).[^1]

Because they didn't use the right specificity in the announcement (used an 8 digit HTS vs 10 digit), there was some confusion for a few weeks if Beer in glass bottles was subject to it as well.

There is now an FAQ on CBP's website clarifying it is not [^2]. And they've updated to the right specificity in the new lists.

> Is HTS 2203.00.0030, Beer made from malt, In containers each holding not over 4 liters, In glass containers; subject to Section 232 duties? > No.

But yes, effective 18 August, they broadened the list a whole lot more and added things from condensed milk to deodorant to both steel and aluminum lists. An absolute nightmare for FMCG supply chain to have to figure this out.

You can agree or disagree with the current administration's trade policy but hopefully, even the staunchest proponents will admit that the execution has been sub-par. With u-turns (sometimes leaving partner countries fuming because the final published tariffs were not what were negotiated[^3]), lack of clarity and changes that land on Friday night after work hours and go into effect on Monday midnight.

[^1]: https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-05884.pdf

[^2]: https://www.cbp.gov/trade/programs-administration/entry-summ...

[^3]: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/business/japan-tariffs-us...

Tangential, but it seems this will also accelerate the move to even more flimsy plastics in everything from appliances to construction materials to cars.

That's one of the primary problems with tarrifs especially broad untargeted ones: the first thing they encourage is offshoring everything because it becomes cheaper to only be hit once on import, rather then multiple times by your suppliers and compliance costs, who in turn are also getting tarrifed on their supplies and tools.

Short term yes. But (this isn’t a defense of tariffs), the concept is that this will spur on domestic production in raw materials. So with this example, if there is a domestic source of copper it wouldn’t be subject to tariffs at all. In theory only, well balanced tariffs would make it cheaper to import US sourced raw materials for use in US bound products. In practice, I don’t think anyone knows what’s involved in doing that.

Great point - I've edited my initial comment to convey the meaning I intended, "don't fuck around with ...", and this administration is fucking around with tariffs.

I'm with you in expecting government to tweak, adjust and modify policy, but it's usually the experts advising and implementing, but we're in the "My ignorance is as valid as your experience era", and we will witness where that will take us.

But then why are CBP (via the shippers) demanding a certificate of analysis rather than just referring people to the HTS? I know a lot of people in the synthesizer industry, and where previously they would just refer to the HTS classification for musical instruments there's a lot confusion about the recently announced 100% tariff on foreign made semiconductors. Since virtually every synth uses semiconductors and a great deal of the trade is in boutique products with relatively low manufacturing volumes, the uncertainty is creating major headaches on top of the headaches caused by the shipping puases.

I have to say it’s quite entertaining watching this from not the US.

Sorry bud, but I don’t think you’re aware of section 232. It became effective on August 1.

https://www.cbp.gov/trade/programs-administration/entry-summ...

You mean this fixes the first order effect that penalizes domestic manufacturers, assuming correct information. It does not solve it, there's second, third, fourth, ... order effects. And there's no rule those are smaller than first order, in fact, they're almost universally more.

Domestic manufacturers are still disadvantaged by having to pay tariffs for materials used for the product, but not present in the final product. And foreign manufacturers still don't. If used in machines (and used up), used in mining (and used up), used in transport, used in energy production, ...

These costs are very large, especially because specific materials are often not available worldwide, or have large differences in quality due to availability of tiny amounts of additives for alloys or compounds. These things do lead to very large differences in quality, and thus in value. You can't model that as a government, it's just not going to happen.

There's no way to fully analyze an entire economic chain (especially when almost everyone involved has a financial incentive to sabotage you doing that correctly, and that includes foreign governments). You'd think this wouldn't have to be explained to either Americans or especially a supposed "defender of capitalism", but here we are.

Yes, I am seriously looking at either splitting my production between internal and external uses to avoid passing tariff costs on to the majority of my customers who are foreign. I've worked at using US companies for many components but that is becoming less attractive. I wish it weren't this way but that is how it goes.

The capricious implementation of the tariffs is another issue. Biden raised tariffs but the implementation involved a months long comment period, then a notice months in advance, and finally implementation. It wasn't ideal in my mind (the specific tariffs) but there was a way to work through the consequences and plan accordingly. This administration does not believe in that. Maybe congress would if they took back responsibility for tariff policy but I don't see that happening right now.

Thanks for the correction. I was mistakenly thinking that Section 232 only applied to steel and aluminum. But copper is also affected as well:

https://www.dominioncustomsconsultants.com/cbp-updated-guida...

Create a bullshit system, deserve bullshit results. Everyone should be making random guesses at the content percentages and wait and see if they even spend time opening a single package let alone melting it down into constituent parts or doing spectral analysis vs a $100 item

In fact this should be a sales tactic for fedex or whomever "we bullshit the numbers for ya!"

It really isn't. It's destructive and short sighted behavior based on incoherent dogmatism over any motivations for thoughtful and more restrained policy decision making. His motivations for any action is based on flattery and ego that stretch the boundaries of multiple universes. It's so crazy how much blatantly unconstitutional stuff he's gotten away with.