Canadian Services to USAJust curious if anyone has had any recent experience using some of the Canadian services from the USA in the age of tariffs.

Would like to send some housings to REC in Alberta, CA but not sure what to expect from either Canadian tariffs going in or USA tariffs coming back. Same with instrument cluster repairs, etc.

 

I do international business between Indonesia and America.

The way tariffs work is if you can slide under the radar you're fine. A couple of housings and some odds and in's nobody is gonna know.

Lately the "new tariffs" just means that inspectors have come under scrutiny. They are looking at smaller packages now.

Before I could get away with shipping a box about 1 cubic meter of cargo (plants and coffee) and the customs guys didn't care. Now they are asking for money. The solution is many smaller boxes.


So short answer, you're fine. I think the tariff thing is targeted at 7 figure or more businesses. Little guys and individuals don't have much impact. If the government can't take a lot of money out of your pocket then they aren't gonna bother.

 

Better do much more research before shipping. For instance there is now a 200% duty going back into the US from Canada on Aluminum.

If you don't have the measured quantity of aluminum, they may deem the entire shipment is aluminum.

There may be a loophole if you are shipping something for repair, but, I have heard, the documentation for that could be burdensome.

You don't want your package stuck in a customs dispute, because the courier could start charging storage fees.

 

https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...-home-1171209/

 

That might be 200% for raw material.

I guess I get around a lot of this stuff cause I "own" the company overseas and here. So essentially I'm shipping to myself.

I still say ship it and sneak it by customs. Little packages go mostly unnoticed. Especially person to person packages.

 

https://www.cbp.gov/trade/programs-a...and-steel-faqs

 

Yeah, that's the kind of stuff my broker reads.

Are you saying its for more than just raw metal? If so then wouldn't it have already paid that tariff in the 90s when it came from Hiroshima?

I still say small box, no problem. Also, if the customs guy opens the box and finds an oily nasty housing, he ain't gonna think this is some kind of big money score.

 

Then there is another option... road trip to Canada!!!

 

I had to provide a Section 232 on a shipment of a privacy cover which had six small screws weighing 3 grams total.

On the form itself it says if you can not properly identify the metal content, the whole shipment could be deemed to be metal.

 

Here is UPS version of the form. Fedex has a simpler version.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ImportTarif...num_and_steel/

 

There is a risk of sending anything with oil/hydrocarbon residue.

At least for air shipments, the shipping company has the right to dispose of such items without you having any recourse.

 

So I had a designer develop some parts for me in Canada, and ship me 3D-printed prototypes. He sent them FedEx almost a month ago, and they've been held up all this time in "clearance process", despite twice being noted as having received international clearance and having departed the facility, only for it days later to have gone nowhere and be back in clearance. It was even weather delayed for a couple days, how I have no idea since it never went anywhere. Mind you, customs already called the shipper and he answered their questions last week. Today I get a call saying they need a form from me (that they'd email), and right away or it'll be shipped back tomorrow. It's a form about metal content, requiring the exact weight, cost, and country of smelting (lol), and if I don't know it's 50% tariff.

A year ago when we kicked it off, I sent the designer a small part to scan and model around, and he's returning it in the package with the 3D prints. That's the only metal in there. Something I already own and shipped to Canada a year ago. I happen to have another one here and it's a whole 1 pound, 14.8 ounces of steel. I've no clue where the raw material it was made from was smelted for ****'s sake.

This is the absolutely asinine, intergalactically stupid bullshit our nation it's committing resources to.

 

There is an automated process to collect tariffs if the Canadian shipper ships by mail. The shipper has to download an app. Once they have the app, they send in a picture of the item being exported and the software determines what the duties will be from the picture. The shipper pays the duty and takes a code number to the post office when they ship the item.

 

I'm listed as the duty payor. This would be like if I mailed you a book to read, and when you sent it back to me I had to pay paper tariffs and needed to know where they sourced the pulp.

 

For the post office, the duties need to be prepaid by the shipper. For couriers the duties need to be collected from the consignee.

It seems the courier shipments are being hampered by a system not designed to handle the increased volume and complexity,

But the set up for the post office seems ot be more efficient.

Canadian shippers will need to guesstimate the duties they need the buyers to cover.

Also the Canadians will have ot live with some funky US governent app on their phones.

 

My advice would be to call REC and ask them. They're likely to be receiving feedback as they have many US customers.

I was actually close to making a call to them for the same reason …

my recollection is that if you were sending a part for service work, and it then shipping back to you, that it’s not entirely subject to the same tariff structure as buying and importing the part from the other country. I’m not entirely sure if that still applies under the latest changes though.

but now see that the OP’s post was from a month ago, did you ever find out for sure?
.

 

I have contacted REC. Have had an ongoing discussion with them. Here is the string:
From REC -This is easy. All you do is declare a $50 value either direction. I had a customer send me a pair just recently and his tariffs were $7.50.
From REC -
I actually sent out a pair of rotor housings last night to return them to a USA customer and the charges were $11.73 for both housings

So it sounds like it's not a big deal. I'm sure we can trust our government to not change the rules or hold my housings hostage...

Was actually hoping the Supreme Court would rule soon on the illegality of the tariffs.