On the subject of purchasing, there are too few large American manufacturers of models though I would be interested to see if folks selling 3D printing STL files to folks who have 3D printers are going to do better business - there’s no way Customs can apply tariffs to electronic files. As to groceries, I think most of my foodstuffs are locally sourced but America produces very few coffee or cacao beans and coffee is a necessity (chocolate is simply an important luxury).
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That this, rather than protectionism, is where wealth lies is something that economists already figured out in the 18th century.
Do away with the sales tax that the USA currently has and replace it with VAT. That usually applies to services as well as to goods, so you pay it on delivery costs, too. You could begin advertising prices including tax while you’re at it 
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The Swedish VAT is only 25%
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…and my wife would be elated. 
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In regards to the above discussion: 
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First post and guess what …
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The market will correct or we will be building old school. By the time you have exhausted the existing inventory of kits with aftermarket bits the path chosen will be much clearer.
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Well there are more important things in international trade than hobby supplies…believe or not.
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The Dead Kennedys provided the answer to the problem on track 1, side 1, of their first album.
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Then I guess it’s a good thing that not many poor low-income people can afford to be modellers these days.
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As I understand it, all the gambling with world trade alliances and playing the tariff game with 178 nations, is to first improve the american producers to sell more to?? And second to be more competitive.
So start it now, and build up your domestic modelling industries. For only you US people. NOW
But I am only an european, what do I know
Rabbits
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Never got into them, but I looked up the song. lol yikes!
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Yes. That is the one.
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Tarrifs are a tax to protect an industry. (Cynics may say its just about collecting money). But how much plastic injection, models, is done in the USA? Almost zero. So who will step up with the knowledge, technollogy, equipment and money? Will you wait and pay a higher price for less quality?
Its like putting a tarrif on bananas while the USA has no banana crops.
Little of this makes sense and for what?
Theres a deeper reason for the USA not being competetive in many fields and putting a bandaide on a bullet hose aint the answer.
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FWIW yesterday i watched an interview on tv with the boss of FedEx Australia. He said there are two options. First is for FedEx to charge for freight plus the tarrif. Second is for the sender to just pay the freight and the receiver pays the tarrif.
He gave several examples of the very complicated and convoluted means of calculating the tarrif. In one example a jacket for a female attracted a different tarrif to that of the almost identical male jacket. This is where the USA has to get their act together.
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Thanks for your comment. I’m not based in the US, but I feel that people saying “I’m fine, I have a stash” miss the point and come across as rather disrespectful to other people who will be affected, or are already.
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We can only control our own stash. We have no real concrete information on the issue outside vendors have said they are not shipping to the US. I have seen a US manufacturer say from a shipping standpoint not an issue at this point. I heard directly from another they are seeing how this shakes out before releasing the next project. It will take some time for the Customs and shipping companies to sort out the correct path and cost. Probably after 30/60 days a plan will have been figured out. The distributors will probably be the “cheaper” way to get bulk orders in the states as individual sales will be too costly. We will still get most major products but it will take longer as the orders will need to be bigger to spread the cost out.
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All I know is Andy released a new video today for an upcoming Takom release and he didn’t look like a guy who gets a ton of his inventory from overseas and is freaking out.
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As a US-based, 3D-printing vendor, the tariffs and other factors have hit us very hard to the point of putting our business at risk.
Firstly, all of our 3D-printers, the resins we use, consumables, printer repair parts, even the packing materials, come from overseas. All of it. We normally buy directly from the manufacturer. Any shipping disruption, as we painfully learned during Covid, could quickly put us out of business. We would buy US-made machines and resins but unfortunately, commercial quality 3D printers and suitable resins simply aren’t made in the US. The bulk of it comes from China. China is very much the center of the 3D printing universe, not the US. Simply put, expensive tariffs and shipping disruptions mean that we either can’t get the resin and repair parts we need, can’t afford them, or both.
Our product markup is less than the tariffs being imposed. This means that we have had to raise prices twice in the last six months and probably will again after the 29th when new tariffs are imposed. Our prices had remained stable for the last 10 years. Now it’s likely we’ll have raised prices 3 times in less than one year.
As a US-based vendor shipping internationally, we ship all outbound packages, except those bought through eBay, DDU. DDU means that we collect no tax at checkout. We ship out via USPS.
International customers typically have been very understanding. Once the package arrives in their country, those customers pay VAT or GST or whatever their governments require to their country’s officials before their package is released for delivery. Very infrequently was an international customer surprised by the extra costs. Customers may also get stung with any tariffs and a handling fee by their postal service or shipping broker.
Fast forward to now. Since January, there has been a big change. International orders have dropped to nearly nothing. The reason for that we believe is political so I won’t discuss it here. But note that the loss of international sales is 1/3rd of our revenue, lost. Ask yourselves how many hobby vendors can sustain a loss of 1/3rd of their revenue in six months and survive it.
Of the few orders we still receive from international customers (thank you for staying with us!!), fully half of those packages are being refused at the receiving end and are returned to us with refunds then due to the customer. This is not sustainable. We lose more in production, shipping materials, etc., than we gain from the markup on returned orders. We cannot continue to ship internationally with half the packages being returned. It’s simply too costly and disruptive for us.
We place no blame on customers who refuse to pay the taxes or surprise fees on their end. The situation is complicated and messy for customers and surprise fees are no joy.
We are closely monitoring this confusing situation and are bracing for what may happen after August 29th when new tariffs are expected to be imposed.
When an international customer buys a product from us through eBay, eBay ships DDP, not DDU, which means the buyer pays any taxes/tariffs up front at checkout. eBay, or its contracted shipper, coordinates all of those costs. In theory, the buyer is spared any costly surprises on the receiving end (we hope).
As the 29th approaches, we feel very much like Gandalf describes a similar moment: “This is the deep breath before the plunge.”
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