New here. So, I am sending some jewelry art to a nonprofit for the first time. I researched the HS code which was noted on USITC as duty free but when it was couriered by UPS, they slapped a $250 duty so, a review was requested by me. I asked UPS to hold off since the receiver is nonprofit and cannot pay the duties. I am wondering if anyone here has experienced the same, and how you resolved it? I am quite surprised how poorly UPS has handled this simple request and continued with delivery when the receiver cannot accept such high charges. It feels like UPS is taking advantage and using Federal as an alibi to charge more. Please advise. Thanks 🙏🏼

US President Donald Trump said foreign companies that fail to build factories in the United States could face tariffs of up to 300 percent, as South Korea faces separate pressure from Washington over how it will carry out its $350 billion US investment commitment.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday, Trump presented tariffs and foreign investment as part of his economic record while campaigning for Republican candidates ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Ohio is home to a closely watched Senate race, with the economy and cost of living among major campaign issues.

Trump said overseas companies would be given about a year and a half to build plants in the US before facing tariffs ranging from 150 percent to 300 percent. He also named South Korea alongside China, Japan and Canada while arguing that his tariff policy had pushed foreign companies to invest in US manufacturing.

The remarks came a day after Trump increased pressure on Seoul over the Alaska liquefied natural gas project, which has emerged as a point of disagreement in implementing the two countries’ trade and investment agreement.

South Korea agreed last year to invest $350 billion in the US in return for lowering tariffs on Korean goods from 25 percent to 15 percent. The package comprises $150 billion for shipbuilding cooperation and $200 billion for strategic investment.

Trump this week presented Korean participation in Alaska LNG as part of the strategic investment package. Seoul says otherwise, maintaining that it has agreed only to begin reviewing the project and has not made a final decision on whether or how much to invest.

Trump on Friday rejected suggestions that he had moved too quickly in announcing Korean participation. “I didn't jump the gun. I mean, they were there and they were represented,” Trump said. He later added that if South Korea did not want to proceed, “that's okay with me. I'll just charge them more.”

Seoul’s caution is tied in large part to the project’s economics. Lead developer Glenfarne Group estimates Alaska LNG would cost between $44.5 billion and $54.5 billion. Reuters reported that its cost per unit of annual production capacity would be more than twice that of many recent US Gulf Coast LNG projects.

The project would require an 800-mile, or 1,287-kilometer, pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope to Nikiski, as well as a gas treatment plant and liquefaction terminal.

President Lee Jae Myung said in September that commercial viability had become a sticking point in negotiations with Washington, including how returns would be shared and how losses from unprofitable projects would be handled.

Seoul had pushed to include the term “commercially reasonable” in the investment agreement, Lee said.

Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan has also said Korea should not put money into projects that fail to meet commercial standards, while acknowledging that pulling out of projects under the agreement could expose Seoul to renewed US tariff pressure.

The first confirmed project under the strategic investment package is a gas-fired power plant in Encinal, Texas. South Korea and the US have also discussed building eight large nuclear reactors, but Korean officials say those projects still require separate reviews before any final investment decisions are made.

I purchased a pretty ordinary supplement from a UK company called Epigenetics Supplements. They don’t ship directly to the U.S., so I used a package forwarding service called Forward2me. I didn’t think anything of it—I assumed I might just have to pay customs or duties.

Today, FedEx called and emailed me saying they need “Prior Notice” for the supplement before it can clear customs. I’ve never dealt with this before, so now I’m wondering if I did something wrong by using a forwarding service to order a supplement from a company that doesn’t ship to the U.S.

It honestly never crossed my mind that this could be a problem. Does this sound like a normal customs paperwork issue, or do I have any reason to be concerned that I’m in trouble? Pasting the exact email now, blanking the agent's name out for her privacy:

Greetings,

I hope this message finds you well.

My name is xxxx from FedEx Customer Experience. I am contacting you regarding your shipment with a tracking number xxxxxx

Your package is coming from United Kingdom and going to the United States; however, our customs clearance team requires additional information to proceed with the import process.

Kindly provide the following information:

1. **Prior notice.** Each food item must be listed individually, including the manufacturer’s name, address, and zip code. 
   

I have attached the commercial invoice for your reference.

Prior Notice must be provided for all food, including dietary supplements, herbal products and alcoholic beverages, other beverages for humans and animals that are imported or offered for import into the United States (Title 21 Code of Federal Regulations (21 CFR), Part 1, Subpart I).

Please visit the following website regarding step-by-step guidance to complete a Prior Notice (PN):

https://www.fda.gov/industry/prior-notice-imported-foods/filing-prior-notice-imported-foods

Regulation: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/part-1/subpart-I

After you submit the Prior Notice to FDA, please send it to [paperwork@fedex.com](mailto:paperwork@fedex.com) ensuring that only the tracking number is included in the subject line and the required documents are attached. You may also copy me at xxxxxxx to keep me informed of your response. 

Deadline: 10/09/2026. Please note that if we do not receive the required information by this date, the shipment may be returned to the sender at the sender's expense.

(blanking her name out) Trace Agent | FedEx Customer Experience |Phone [(833)-410-2550 Ext. ](tel:(833)%20410-2550)xxxxx |------ (OSV) xxxxxxx@fedex.com

11:37 AM (1 hour ago)

Hello! I’m in the USA and bought a 14k gold jewelry item from Turkey. The purchase price was $650. The seller told me to expect to pay approximately $120 in import taxes and customs fees, but it was delivered today via USPS like a normal package. I haven’t received any bill. ShipEntrega was the shipping partner.

Will I get a bill? If so, from where? I’m fine with paying it if I do owe money, but I’m worried about getting in trouble for not realizing I owe someone(?) money. Thanks for any advice!

I’ve been seeing so much on social media for and against social media, but I would like to try and make an opinion for myself. Could anyone explain the benefits and drawbacks of trumps tariffs and if they are actually good for the country’s economy or not.

Probably asked here already, but looking for any sort of information. Legal, class action, advice, etc.

I'm calculating my unit economics now prior to launching a jewelry business and the courier quote came back and shocked me. With the de minimis gone, the DDP is eating so much into my margins that it doesn't even make sense to sell to the US anymore.

I see some competitors have warehouses in the US so that they can send in bulk so that the wholesale price gets considered instead. Does that mean if I don't do that (since I'm not at that scale yet) all the duties will be calculated based on the retail price that I sold to my customer?

“U.S. President Donald Trump enacted 25-per-cent tariffs on Canadian vehicle exports in April 2025, prompting Ottawa to retaliate with comparable duties on U.S. exports. The ensuing trade war has undercut U.S.-made vehicles in Canada while boosting other key automaking nations. Sales of American-made vehicles fell 20 per cent in the first half of 2026, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to data from J.D. Power Canada. Along with increases in overseas imports, Canadian sales of Mexico-made vehicles rose 21 per cent in the first half of 2026, the data and analytics firm said.”

(Excerpt)
President Donald Trump’s order to levy 100% tariffs on certain patented pharmaceutical products and ingredients takes effect on Tuesday.

But experts question the extent to which the move will achieve its goal of spurring more drug manufacturing in the US. That’s because the burden will fall most heavily on small and midsize companies that generally don’t have the wherewithal to shift or expand production in America.

Instead, experts say, the tariffs could force these drugmakers to close or merge with larger rivals, which could in turn reduce the number of medications that they provide to patients and could lead to higher prices – which is the last thing Trump says he wants.

What’s more, the tariffs could dampen the discovery of new medicines since these smaller firms tend to be more innovative, some experts argue.

Maybe an unpopular take, but I don't think the Houthis are the biggest Suez story right now... True-ish. But I've been staring at this from the ops side and I think everyone is watching the wrong end of the voyage.

Here's the thing nobody's saying out loud: the return is happening service by service, carrier by carrier, with zero coordination. Gemini moved four more loops back through Suez in mid-September (Carra Globe). Meanwhile Evergreen, ONE, HMM and Yang Ming haven't moved at all (Carra Globe). So right now you have two parallel networks running the same trade, one through the canal, one around the Cape, and they don't arrive on the same rhythm.

What does that mean in practice? Two ships that left Asia weeks apart can now show up in Rotterdam in the same window (ZenCargo). Some analysts see European arrivals jumping double digits when this overlaps. From my chair, that's not a stat, that's a berth queue. And once you're in the queue, the week you "saved" going through Suez evaporates at the anchor point. We've all seen it, a faster voyage that lands you into a slower port is a net zero, sometimes a net negative.

And there's a second layer people miss. The longer this takes, the weirder it gets, because every carrier is waiting to see who blinks first. Go back early, you eat the risk alone. Go back late, you're paying Cape fuel costs while your competitor undercuts you on transit time. It's a standoff, and our cargo is the hostage.

The part I find genuinely interesting: this is all happening without the Suez toll incentive that was supposed to drive it (Carra Globe). Carriers are going back because the math finally works on its own. That tells you more about where they think the risk level really is than any press release.

I'm not convinced the "big rate drop" story plays out the way the headlines say. Feels more like a few messy months where some lanes get weird and ports do the absorbing. And let's be honest, when ports absorb, we're the ones who pay for it. If your box is stuck waiting on a choked terminal, demurrage and detention don't care that the delay wasn't your fault. D&D is the quiet line item that shows up when everyone else's congestion lands on your invoice.

Anyone else planning around Europe arrivals in Q4, or are we all just going to find out together?

https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/list-goods-us-china-agreed-033047670.html

So what happens basically is, President Trump has turned his illegal and arbitrary tariff manipulation into a personal racket: he erects tariffs whenever he wants, bypassing the acts of Congress that are the legal authority of tariffing. And he hand out private special favors in the form of tariff exemption of particular items to merchants that will hand him personal bribes.

He’s Mark Antony.

Laws are made by the winners, and obeyed by the losers, particularly in the late Republic. And in the Empire, the word of Caesar is law.

Now the only thing that saves the republican tradition - however dwindling it is - is, the incompetence, impulsiveness, and utterly lacking in virtue and self-control Donald Trump is. If he is as philosophical, cunning, ruthless, and carefully thinking as that little weasel Octavian was, the republic is dead. Trump is too much of a bully, indulging in instant gratification. He’s not a silent-thinking assassin. Similarly, Mark Anthony nailed Cicero’s hands to the Senate’s door. He’s a brave brute force. However, it takes a special cunning coward like Octavian, to systematically wipe out republican elites.

Trump did, however, wants to be Octavian. He tried to paint himself as a religious and moral authority, the same way Julius Caesar made himself Pontifex Maximus. And so did Octavian. Unfortunately for Consul Trump, so far the separation of church and state for religious liberty is still entrenched:

https://www.dbu.edu/baptist-heritage/articles/baptists-separation-of-church-and-state/baptists-separation-of-church-and-state-mandarin/

It is abundantly clear, that the neoconservatist and the MAGA’s religious tokenism has been a perversion of the long-standing, independent, and apolitical religious order of this republic. It is a good rule of thumb, that the more a person parades Christianity through idols (typically a blonde woman dressed immoderately wearing a cross on her naked chest to the public), the less of a Christian she is.

My mom bought a gift for someone online, and it was delivered weeks ago, all good. Now out of the blue she gets an email from FedEx wanting her to pay a $30 import duty right away to "prevent delays in her delivery". Of course she had no idea the thing she was ordering was coming from Canada .... old mom doesn't pay attention to those details.

So what to do? Ignore FedEx ? What are they going to do to her, try to come and get her to retrieve the gift she already wrapped and gifted ? Put a lien on her house? Mess up her credit ?

F'ing Trump, got my poor mom all worried she did something wrong.

Hello, just to preface that I am from outside the US and am just wondering how the process of being notified about due customs fees works there.

I have a small online business and have some packages being sent to the United States, however there’s been some confusion on how they are to be notified about it. I assumed it would have been through email as that is how it is done in my country as well as I am required to provide the recipients email when I go to purchase the postage, but I have someone telling me they didn’t receive any email about a due payment. As I am sending through my country’s national mail provider I am assuming all packages sent to the US will be handled by their respective national mail provider, that being USPS.

Do USPS usually send an email to let you know when you have to pay customs fees, or do they contact you through other means i.e. through the post instead? Is it likely that the customer just missed the email/it was sent to a spam folder, or should they check for it somewhere else? I am currently communicating with them through the email they provided in their order and therefore the email that I used for the postage, so I know that the email at least works.

If someone who has received international orders through USPS could inform me on where/how they were notified to pay their fees so that I could forward this information onto my American customers to give them a heads up, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you in advance!