China tariffs may already be hiking up import fees
US consumers may already be seeing additional fees on shipments from China after President Donald Trump’s tariff on Chinese goods took effect on Tuesday.
Clint Reid, the founder and CEO of a company that offers software to help with cross-border commerce, posted screenshots on X showing additional charges added to a shipment from DHL:
Another X screenshot appears to show DHL requesting an import duty on a shipment from Hololive. We’ve seen a similar screenshot on Reddit. One Reddit user in a retro gaming handheld emulator community shared a screenshot of an email from Keepretro asking if a buyer would pay an extra $8 on their package due to the tariffs; another user posted the same message with a $6 charge. Yet another X user claims DHL will send an order back to the sender if import duties aren’t paid within five days. DHL and Keepretro didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
A Trump administration order over the weekend added a 10 percent tariff to goods from China and closed the de minimis exception, a loophole that lets packages valued under $800 enter the US duty-free. The new rules appear to have quickly resulted in people being asked to pay additional charges on many more shipments from China.
The order also caused the US Postal Service (USPS) to briefly suspend inbound package shipments from China and Hong Kong before it backtracked. “The USPS and Customs and Border Protection are working closely together to implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery,” the USPS said.
Big Tech companies have largely been silent about any plans to deal with the tariffs. But given that many of them sell goods manufactured and imported from China, they could also pass the import costs onto consumers or require them to pay duty fees. China also launched an antitrust investigation against Google, already has an investigation open against Nvidia, and is reportedly considering an investigation into Intel.
Trump separately ordered tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, but those have each been put on a one-month pause.