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Six months into tariffs, businesses have no idea how to price anything

(www.wsj.com)
462 points JumpCrisscross | 4 comments | 30 Aug 25 20:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.214s | source
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johnnienaked ◴[31 Aug 25 02:18 UTC] No.45079760[source]▶
Haven't tariffs been paused since they've been announced?
replies(4): >>45079846 #>>45080850 #>>45081639 #>>45083383 #
estearum ◴[31 Aug 25 02:35 UTC] No.45079846[source]▶
Some of them yes, some of them no. There are now several thousand different "tax brackets" for imported items and the apparent rates on them fluctuate by the day.
replies(1): >>45079957 #
Gigachad ◴[31 Aug 25 02:58 UTC] No.45079957[source]▶
Most global post offices are just suspending packages to the US because they don’t know what the price is or how to pay it.
replies(2): >>45080412 #>>45080552 #
1. songqin ◴[31 Aug 25 05:17 UTC] No.45080552[source]▶
this isn't true, tariffs are assessed within the US by the receiving firm, not on the sender's side. We run a business with a foreign supply chain and our suppliers have changed nothing, we just get an extra bill to pay to the government when our inventory arrives.
replies(3): >>45080916 #>>45081035 #>>45081064 #
2. mallets ◴[31 Aug 25 06:43 UTC] No.45080916[source]▶
It's more the public postal services with very cheap international shipping, they typically can't or won't handle import customs/tariffs and operate under the assumption that the packages aren't valuable enough. Many of them don't even have tracking.
3. Gigachad ◴[31 Aug 25 07:09 UTC] No.45081035[source]▶
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-26/australia-post-commer...

>"Specifically, the requirement for duties and taxes to be prepaid on all shipments prior to their arrival in the US,"

4. cbcoutinho ◴[31 Aug 25 07:13 UTC] No.45081064[source]▶
This is related to the removal of 'de minimis' rule that exempts parcels under $800 to ship duty free. This has caused some European postal services to stop/delay shipping some packages to the US [0]. The Dutch postal service for instance has stopped shipping to the US [1]

[0]: https://apnews.com/article/us-tariffs-goods-services-suspens...

[1]: https://www.postnl.nl/campagnes/online-frankeren-vs/