We regret but have to temporary suspend the shipments to USA

I’m not in the US, but I had to order a bunch of hard drives from a US retailer. My country imports almost all electronics from the US through freight forwarding, and probably more than 90% of my online spending is with US retailers too.

The problem now is that nobody - including retailers and shipping companies - really knows how returns will be handled if the drives need servicing under warranty. The transport companies here are saying everything has to be declared down to the molecular level, and no matter what it is - even a return - tariffs and broker fees still have to be paid.

So it looks like I’ll have to halt importing from the US anything that comes with a warranty. The funny thing is, with all the crazy taxation the EU already has, US tariffs make importing from the EU actually cheaper once you factor in potential returns.

Granted, I live in a tiny country, and for the US economy this is probably just a drop in the bucket. But I can’t help wondering how much unforeseen collateral damage this will cause - it has to add up.