When the $800 de minimis exemption was removed on USA imports, chaos ensued. The post office was no longer accepting packages without the duty being prepaid from Canada to CBP. But the post office currently provides no mechanism for any shipper to take advantage of USMCA trade agreement exemptions or any other duty reductions or exclusions (like we need for steel derivative products).
Meanwhile, DHL, UPS and Fedex were still able to accept shipments without pre-paying the duty and, in theory, could apply all the duty exclusions and USMCA trade agreement terms to our shipments. But, after much trial and error, we found out that they didn’t and couldn’t; the post-de minimis volume they had to process forced them to use software to rate the duty, and that software wasn’t taking any of the exclusions into account either. The result was that our customers were charged duty at around 75% in most cases and each time we had to open disputes with the carrier to get a human to correct paperwork. So in the end, neither carrier had a solution for us and neither of them showed any interest in finding one.
Because the carriers were incapable, we switched tactics and engaged a professional customs broker that is able to consolidate our shipments and clear them into the USA by truck, allowing final delivery to the end customer via US-domestic UPS shipments. An actual person is handling our clearances and we have direct access to them should questions arise.
The next step is for them to train us on their process flow and software, after which we can do our first consolidated shipments and clear our backlog. We were hoping our first shipment would be in the Dec 1st week, but as of Dec 5, we were still waiting. They seem confident that we will go live in the Dec 8th week. We will keep this post updated with the latest status.
Jim
I love my first Skaha 2.
I would love to purchase another.
I love Canada. I have spent many months canoeing thousands of miles in many provinces. Love the fishing, wildlife, and wonderful friends I have made.
I hate what is going on now with the crazy stupid politics in my country.
I may have to wait 3+ years until my country comes to it’s senses and reestablished the cordial relationship we have enjoyed with our northern neighbor for the 75 years I have been on this planet.
You make a fantastic product!!!
John Gudmundson
Hi Jim,
Thanks for your kind and gentle words Jim. I totally agree; I long for a return to gracious American leadership, goodwill, and neighborliness.
Gus
Well maybe stop shipping to the USA to avoid the headache, Though I used to to be a huge proponent of buying US made consumer goods and supporting both our economy and theirs I think it’s time to maybe change that mindset considering the current state of affairs. No offense to our neighbours but with such a unstable political administration in the US your at risk conducting any type of business there.
John Gudmundson
Hi Gus,
We could not have built the business we have by giving up easily. This tariff situation is a very hard problem, but we feel we are close to a solution, partly because we are learning new things every week and because the carriers are beginning to put more resources in place to cope with the situation.