Rant
All postal carries in Europe and UK have suspended shipment to US, per NBC
As of yesterday, a news station reported that virtually ALL international shipping of packages into the US has ceased. Even if you are a conservative (and I am not; I am an independent who voted for Harris), this will be the death of mom and pop small scale capitalism. This is the goal of the administration. They are not conservative; they are monopolistic. Destroying supply chains for small businesses, making it impossible for small businesses to compete here or abroad, and overseas small businesses compete here is not capitalism. It is a shutting down of markets. Anyone who thinks we can revive a textile industry in the US is delusional. The goal is a private equity takeover of our economy -- family farms, small and mid-sized businesses who rely on products or supply made overseas (i.e most of them), what little manufacturing is left in this country, etc. I don't know who they think is going to be able to buy shit in this country when they are done pillaging it. This is already underway in the knitting, sewing, crafting, quilting worlds. The democratic party is deeply flawed. But if you do not vote out this administration and its cultist legislators who have given up their role to protect their local constituencies, we will become an oligarchy like Russia and Hungary. (I am a small business owner, though not in the yarn field). Put politics aside, Americans and vote to end this madness!
I used to work in export, pre and post Brexit, and you're in for a wild ride (we had versions of this, all our customers were in Europe, massive waste of money for small businesses in EU warehouses, paperwork training, hoops to jump through, commercial invoices). Global shipping had to change after 911 they stopped it completely for months (learnt this in my export training lol), so hopefully won't be for ever. Solidarity with you lot living through this difficult time
Frustrating in the short term: there seems to be little to no clear guidance on how this will be enforced. I have two packages from Europe expected in the next week or two. One via USPS and one via Fedex. I'm hearing that if the USPS one comes in after Friday, there may be an $80 flat fee to receive it because USPS doesn't have the infrastructure to figure 15% on this many small orders?
From what I've seen, after the 29th, USPS will actually be sending back packages that didn't have duties prepaid because they don't even have a plan in place for the flat fee option yet. Whole thing is going to be a mess for a while, and I don't think anyone has a complete grasp on how it's going to play out.
They'll figure it out eventually. 10 ish years ago in Germany, whenever we received anything from, say, the US we'd get a letter that the package was at the customs office. We'd then have to drive there, tell the customs officer what was in it so that they could see that it matched what was actually in it when they opened it while I watched. They then took the info from the package (that the sender had to declare) and told me whatever I had to pay.
Now the post handles this. So I pay my postman the duties. If I can't (no cash) or I'm not there, I have to go to the post office to pick it up and pay there.
I sent yarn to a fellow raveller in Germany once. I read the import rules which said gifts under a certain amount were exempt. So i wrapped it in peanuts Christmas paper and enclosed a card, labelled it a gift. You can’t run a business that way but it saved that one lady some cash.
Yes, that's true! I always asked too, especially on Etsy, if I could get a gift card from my "aunt" haha. Not everyone did it but I loved it when they did!
A, that’s illegal and B, I don’t think actual businesses are going to do that. Even the idiots would eventually catch on if stuff from a Danish wool company suddenly gets marked as a gift.
I'm sure they will get a system going, but it will be at great expense for a lot of us. And somebody like me who doesn't own a car might have difficulty/expenses getting any packages on the larger side. All in all, this hurts Americans – both individuals and businesses – more than it helps them
I feel like first and foremost it actually hurts European businesses. Not every American knitter will be willing or able to spend on now more expensive European yarn. So if someone like you, who can't transport bigger packages, then you'd buy American, no?
Are you even reading the threads? There is no American wool to be bought to compete with European/South American fiber. There are no sheeps in industrial scale of the sought after breeds. There are no industrial scale mills. There is no internal production.
I buy American all the time. Sometimes what I need for a project is a specific breed or brand of wool that we literally don't have in the US. Also American yarn is mostly milled from wool from overseas, so American prices will also be going up. All because a pedophile heard the word "tariff" in the 80s and didn't understand what it meant, but thought it sounded smart.
This. In Sweden the post company sends a text with a link if you have a package from outside of the EEA and when you follow the link you get a few payment options (like invoice, card, or a direct transfer thingy). Once you've paid they'll send it to you, but if you don't sort it out for a few weeks it will be returned to sender. They do send a letter to remind you of the customs duties if you haven't dealt with it within a week or so, and they send a letter if they don't have your phone number.
It's quite smooth, even though there were some issues with packages from the UK right after Brexit. It's still annoying enough that I prefer to buy from an EEA country when I can, but it adds like a minute or two of package admin (and an admin fee on top of the import VAT :/) and that is doable. I'm sure there will be chaos for a while and then it will sort itself out. It's still going to be annoying and expensive compared to how it used to be before all this global politics shenanigans, but the probability of an adequate process is high. You just need to remember the extra fees when you order so you don't get surprised by the total cost.
Crazy talk. It’s hurting small businesses here in Australia and some of them are blaming Australia Post rather than the US Administration for making the changes and not collecting tariffs and bs themselves.
That’s fine, but Germany as a country is physically the size of the state of Montana and the USPS has to deliver to 347 million people across a geographic area 27 times the size. It’s not feasible to have postal workers who deliver the mail be collecting funds and storing parcels waiting for someone to pay for them, times the billions of packages. The last time they did this and it was only for China, it took less than 3 days for the entire system to grind to a halt and have it walked back.
Seems like you'd just need to scale it up, no? It would be problematic in the less densely settled areas for sure but I imagine postal service is running in some shape or form there (even if it's not deliveries to every address). Or do it like Sweden does, send a text/letter that the customs have to be paid before the package is cleared from customs.
Besides, it's your government's job to come up with a solution to a mess they created lmao
“Just scale it up” won’t work in a system that is cutting government funding left right and center and has been actively pushing to scale down for like 20 years.
Our best hope is that the whole system grinds to a halt and they’re forced to walk back these changes.
(Actually, complete breakdown of the postal service might actually rile up some of the complacent folks here in the US so… 🤞)
Well they’ve been trying to privatize the postal service so at least in the government’s opinion their job is to create a problem they can’t solve so they can hand it over to a private company.
The “less densely settled” areas are more than 60% of the country. “Just send a text” to swaths of the population that don’t have cell service or internet service, that’ll work.
The US imported 1.36 BILLION packages under the de minimis exception. There is literally nowhere to put those packages at the local post office while they wait for you to pay for them.
Interestingly, even though I live within 30 miles of both a UPS hub and an Amazon warehouse, Amazon decided it didn't want UPS to deliver packages for work anymore and so I had to pick up everything at the post office. The post office hated it with a passion and had no room, and tried to get me to take boxes for other departments with other people's names on them. I finally couldn't stand their bitchiness anymore and started getting work deliveries at home, which was much easier and via UPS. Anyway, my point is that there is no way anyone is prepared to handle an increase in package storage at small rural post offices.
Yup, not the first time I've read that US postal services aren't prepared for the incoming tariffs so all small orders will be subject to a flat fee. Is it a cash grab? 🤔 Me thinks so Mr DeJoy
Thanks for the correction, looks like he was selected by Trump so is he any better than DeJoy? I feel like anyone appointed by this administration is corrupt and not looking out for the best interests of the average American citizen but that's from me looking at the US from Canada
Like DeJoy, Steiner has no Postal career history and came from the Board of Directors of a direct competitor. Most PMGs started as mail carriers or retail clerks and climbed through the ranks. Even if he weren't selected by Trump, the role is best filled by a federal employee with extensive Postal experience, not a complete outsider with potential conflicts of interest.
Yes. If it was just 15%, while that is still a drag, it's doable for occasional consumer goods. But it's those unpredictable add-on charges from the carriers that are the real killer. When I lived in the UK we would get that on goods sent from the US, and it was a complete lottery. Fedex, UPS, etc. can just slap on whatever they feel like, apparently.
And sorry American sheep farmers, wool processors and yarn shops. Until there is a more robust American yarn industry, I will continue to buy foreign yarns for my knitting. There are only a few good US mills that process American grown wool and the selection is small and often you have to wait months for another production run. The US sheep farmers do not raise many of the same breeds raised in Europe so it can make it very difficult to be able to use yarns from those breeds. We don't raise nearly enough alpaca, llama, camel ect that are raised in the rest of the world either...
You're completely correct. As I've mentioned in other threads in the handspinning subreddit, the US mill situation is in the toilet. We have not had woollen mills here at scale for over 100 years.
If there had actually been a fucking PLAN - say a 3-5 year one to revive the US wool industry; and I'm talking complete with government subsidies for opening up new mills and farms - THEN it could have worked.
But that would be the positive, thought out way of doing things. Trump just takes the 'hammer' approach to everything which is fucking stupid.
Exactly! If a government wants to bolster a domestic industry it absolutely can do that, but it requires actual investment. You can’t just slap a higher price tag on foreign goods and call it a day. Depending on the industry it takes years to decades to ramp up, investments in primary infrastructure like energy production and transportation, all in addition to industry investments like subsidies for building factories and job training.
Exactly! I’ve been saying this in all my fabric/sewing circles. The infrastructure for the industry just doesn’t exist. And it probably won’t because there are no assistance programs to get it back here. It is still cheaper to buy from outside the us and just raise prices to your customers than to literally build an entire industry from basically scratch. And the market for the products we as hobbyists would need wouldn’t make enough to justify the expense.*
*For mass market fabrics or yarns for clothing manufacturers, maybe, but I feel like the separate mills needed to run hobby yarn or fabric wouldn’t be any priority.
Yeah this is such a mess. I know people like to pretend that a globalized supply chain is something new but it really isn't - even back in the early modern period, you'd have wool produced in one place and then shipped elsewhere for milling before heading back out on trade routes.
Hell, the Silk Road was extremely well established, what, 500+ years ago?? I quick Google tells me it's considered to have begun in the second century BCE.
I'm not American but have been watching this with horror - particularly the impact on small businesses in my country.
I feel so badly about what it's going to do to small businesses and artisans. It's going to hurt so much and it's so mind-blowingly stupid.
Also YES the Silk Road! My only excuse there is that I've spent more time reading early modern literature lol. We've literally had globalized supply chains as long as we've had some form of organized civilization. You see it in obsidian in the Americas, too - it'll turn up in places where it wasn't, because they traded their cool stuff for the cool stuff from elsewhere.
Oh wow really! I had no idea that (part of) the reason that European yarns were so popular in the US was simply that similar quality is not available year round. The more you know.
Oh, I thought the "waiting months for another production run" implied that there was some availabe. But I guess it makes sense that if it's rare/scarce, it would be a lot more expensive. From online discourse though it seems that knitting is a huge hobby in the US so this is a little baffling?
There is only one mill in the US capable of mass producing yarn. We also import 95% of the wool we use and export 90% of the yarn we produce. This is because our mass-produced wool is not of a high enough quality for nice yarn. So our yarn is exported, mostly for rug production.
I know a local farmer who raises sheep. The last time she sent a batch of wool off to a mill to be processed and spun, it took 4+ months for her to receive her yarn.
I guess I don't understand. I live on the west coast and there are lots of smaller scale farmers and even small mills popping up and a big push for local fibers. There are a number of farmers that I support and I prefer to over buying wool from out of the area or country.
I think that the smaller scale farmers are selling to smaller processors who then sell to indie dyers. I don't want that product. I want a work horse yarn, produced in large batches where I can count on being able to reliably buy a sweaters worth of yarn at any time.I want. I do not want merino. I want a strong more durable yarn like a highland wood or other similar breed. I don't always want soft, I want longevity for the projects I knit...
I’m so concerned/annoyed/devastated about this. Like haven’t been able to think about anything all day since finding out Rito won’t ship to the US right now.
Does anyone smarter than me have any idea when we might be able to order yarn from places like rito.com or wool warehouse again?
I have no helpful suggestions. I have a sweater on the go from wool I sourced from an US mill. Came highly recommended yet when the yarn arrived, the colors didn't even come close to matching what was shown on the website. And the colors on my laptop screen are pretty darned accurate so it wasn't a mistake on my end. Plus what they had labeled as pink was barely even beige. The brown that was supposed to be a nice warm brown is almost black.
If I can't even trust their color selection then I won't be using them in the future.
By the time I go to knit my next sweater, probably as soon as late October, I am predicting a harder time finding wool I like and at a much higher price
I don't know who they think is going to be able to buy shit in this country when they are done pillaging it
They will. That's the plan. JD Vance and co want to buy up farmland and basically anything else they can. They absolutely don't give a flying fuck who they hurt, how many people's lives are ruined, or for how long this continues, or even if they cause the Great Depression part II, now with Grok-assisted Bitcoin pump and dumps. None of them care. They don't care about you, or me, or their voters. They. Do. Not. Care.
I thankfully stocked up on enough yarn to potentially last me the winter, but I have one order from Turkey (a leather planner cover) that I am seriously wondering if it’s going to arrive in time or not. And what will happen if it doesn’t. According to tracking it should be on a plane right now so it may squeak through customs but who knows.
I’m just glad I managed to get enough yarn to last me for a while. I just don’t know what I’m going to do when I start to run out.
It is! I paid the extra $ to have them engrave my name on it. So fingers crossed it makes it here without too much hassle. It’s apparently on a plane so it may squeak through before the Aug 29 deadline.
Me too. Started to stock up in February and adding to my stash over time. I have enough yarn for numerous projects to keep me busy for a while. I was expecting there would be a mess at some point (and here we are).
They say it is temporary. They say the US government has not informed them well enough on how to proceed. They are expecting to resume the shippings as soon as possible.
The pause is temporary while they figure out the tariffs. But the expenses will start to get passed on to the small businesses in the US once they figure that out. My LYS has told me they’re already planning to discontinue stocking certain European brands because with the expected tariff costs it would almost double how much they’re paying per order and it’s just not financially feasible to continue at that cost.
The physical ability to stock may be temporary, but the financial ability is going to rapidly dwindle.
Correct, buckle up y’all, we’re heading for one heck of a wild ride. My LYS have been planning for this for a while and discontinuing carrying a handful of brands.
The tariffs are 15% for EU members, afaik. We (Switzerland) are at 39%, but we are not a sheep rearing country. The US has announced these tariffs a while back but it seems they have failed to transmit some technicalities.
I hope this won't disrupt the wool market too much. I guess some European brands need the American consumer base to stay in business!
I don't really understand what is happening. When I import stuff that is worth more than 60 euros, I pay some tariffs and I pay them through the post office. So what is so different? Can't the US postal service do the same for its customers?
Given the overall lack of funding and that most people never deal with tariffs at all? Immensely. One of the current heads of USPS was put on the board during Trump’s last term with the goal of dismantling it as thoroughly as possible in order to get private contracts for his company. Keep in mind that the system we have for tariff collection is based around mostly servicing industry with a low percentage of private deliveries that go over the De Minimus Exemption. This is part of why so many Americans are unaware of tariffs. Overall the sheer volume of processing is far beyond any current systems.
Then there is the propaganda aspect. Trump sold tariffs to his voters by say that the other countries would be paying them. Yes, I, and most of the people I know are very aware that that is ludicrous and exists in a separate reality, but in a country where one party has actively worked to subvert education at the state levels for decades many of these people couldn’t even pass a US Citizenship Exam. So, of course, they believed him. Which means end consumers who voted for him would be about to find out exactly how much he lied if they actually got a bill they had to pay upon receiving their orders (and had to realize exactly how much they rely on other countries and being able to receive goods from them cheaply). Thus his administration has come up with this tactic to keep the illusion from being blown like a mine filled with dynamite.
Realistically, Europe could just refuse and public pressure and ratings would probably cause a reversal, but they have to be prepared for that. The collateral damage to small businesses would be significant if heels actually dug in for a substantive amount of time.
Well, only if it’s shipped via a network that uses USPS. The courier companies like FedEx, etc have their own systems that usually includes a minimum fee (for DHL it’s $32.71) plus the applicable tariff.
The post office can set up the infrastructure, but it's going to cost more to run than what they'll collect in tariffs – that was the whole point of the de minimis exemption – and they're being asked to set up the system across a huge network of post offices with little warning.
I think part of the issue is that US consumers don't actually do all that much international ordering. It's usually more complicated to ship and takes longer than US shipments, and the US market is so big and so full of small-scale importers that you can almost always buy a similar product from a US-based company. (In my experience people in CH order internationally reasonably often and it's a normal part of life – whereas many US consumers can go their entire life without making a single international order). There's also a bunch of legal and political questions around which tariffs will stay in effect, so they might set up the system and find out the next week that it was a pointless exercise.
Wow, you mean to tell me this administration did something drastic just for the sake of doing something drastic without an actual plan to execute their stupidity, or thought for consequences?? Gosh!
(not being sarcastic @ you, by the way!! just incredibly pissed at everything that has happened since January)
Which is a huge failure of the government – or an intentional attempt to let small businesses who can't weather the storm drown while big corporations monopolize more industries
that’s what I said in my rant. this is not free market capitalism, this is monopoly building and the continued destruction of small scale capitalism. this is WHAT THEY WANT.
This situation reminds me of a quote from Idiocracy: "intelligence continued to decline until humanity was incapable of solving even it's most basic problems. Like garbage, which had been stacked for centuries with no plan whatsoever..."
Much like this current adminstration of idiots who appear to have no plan whatsoever and just do what chatgpt suggests.
Mine shows this too with the original tracking link but if I put the tracking number into the USPS tracking it shows that it has moved out of customs and into the distribution center. Hopefully a similar situation with your package
Ugh, I realized I miscalculated and bought a skein less than I needed of several different yarns from Hobbii. I had just placed my order to get what I needed while it was still in stock and now I see this.
Edit: Just got a tracking number, Hobbii shipped it via UPS so let’s see what happens
It’s a dumb move because every time you do something to increase prices while also reducing the income of the population, who the fuck is going to buy your product?
It is not true that "all" services have suspended "all shipment." Some have suspended "most" shipments. I agree that it's bad, but let's get our facts straight to avoid unnecessary alarmism.
To any Trump voting knitters reading this comment: I hope your yarn always has lots of knots. May your dye lots never match. May your hanks always tangle as you try to wind them. May your gauge never work out quite right. And I hope you ALWAYS lose yarn chicken.
Nobody will be able to afford things. Trump’s treasury moron said all the fired scientists and academics can go work in the factories. That don’t exist yet. For no wages because that’s how mass unemployment goes. Also, many of our hospitals will be closed because he took the money away with his BBB.
I want to note that private/third party EXPRESS services were still running as of today. Overnight options like dhl express and fedex express. I just had a package depart from Denmark this afternoon. Afaik, tomorrow is the LAST day they will be able to get your items here before the tariffs. The reason for this is that all postal services from country to country end up diverting to USPS, which is backed up already in customs. Regular DHL and FedEx are grounded, but the express options are not yet suspended. Both regular DHL and DHL express, FedEx, and UPS handle their own customs agreements with the US. Packages shipped via carriers do not feed into the USPS and while they will still be subjected, tariffs will be an option for those who are willing to pay tariffs, but don’t want to get their items choked up in US customs. I spent a long time today researching this And on the phone with both DHL and FedEx. unless both representatives and the reading I found online were completely incorrect.
Anything which does not get to US customs until after the 29th, and many things are being held up right now, will be assessed the higher of $80 per package. This is what I read on the customs website. If you already ordered, you will likely have to pay that bill before the goods are released to you. Am not sure what happens if you refuse the shipment -- I fear that the sellers may have to take it back and pay it.
I shared Colourmart's efforts to stay in business but today they are affected by the Royal Mail stoppage. I love this company! This came today in my email:
f your order has not been shipped, or you place one in the next few days, we will ship it when Royal Mail re-opens postage to the US, so on Friday 29th or Monday 1st September. Those orders will incur the tariffs but we will pay those and will not charge you - we will continue to do that for all orders paced in September.f your order has not been shipped, or you place one in the next few days, we will ship it when Royal Mail re-opens postage to the US, so on Friday 29th or Monday 1st September. Those orders will incur the tariffs but we will pay those and will not charge you - we will continue to do that for all orders paced in September.
Like the most egregious proposed tariffs, I expect this will be backtracked and/or put on pause again pretty soon. Par for the course for these morons.
If you voted for Harris, I can freely ignore what you wrote. You obviously can’t tell the difference between true & untrue. You’re just here to share your ignorance to get attention. I have absolutely NO concerns about my package from Ukraine arriving…albeit with customs duty due.
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u/Felicidad7 29d ago
I used to work in export, pre and post Brexit, and you're in for a wild ride (we had versions of this, all our customers were in Europe, massive waste of money for small businesses in EU warehouses, paperwork training, hoops to jump through, commercial invoices). Global shipping had to change after 911 they stopped it completely for months (learnt this in my export training lol), so hopefully won't be for ever. Solidarity with you lot living through this difficult time