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Audiophonics no longer sells to USA

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I have no idea. Where they low value items? I can't recall now what the threshold was, maybe below 30 dollars.

Usually the carrier pays Customs and you pay the carrier along with the freight charges and the customs broker fee.

Possibly the tariff amount was so small compared to the freight charge you did not notice? It would all be on the same invoice. Many items were only tariffed at 2 or 3 percent prior to the 2025 increases.

Possible you were importing something that was never tariffed although I can't imagine what that would be.

If it helps (though seems rather obvious), Buckeye is importing Hypex and Purifi modules for his amps. Am sure he orders them in bulk to get a price break based on quantity, so is likely an extensive expense for his business.
 
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These 2 just did not resonate w/me and being a cop-out that I am; I asked Gemini for your top 2 sentences' exactitude?
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[1]"This is incorrect. Virtually all countries maintain tariff schedules on imported goods. It's standard international trade practice, not limited to "a few countries.""
[2]"This is false. The EU has maintained the Common Customs Tariff since 1968, applying to all goods entering the EU from non-member countries. Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, India, and others have long-standing comprehensive tariff schedules."
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I am with Gemini, even if it is hallucinating!:confused:
2 This is incorrect. The EU did not exist in 1968..
 
It has been said that the "Mother of all trade wars" was the 1930 Smooth-Hartley act .:eek:
 
2 This is incorrect. The EU did not exist in 1968..
I am afraid that Gemini is unfortunately correct.
European CCT was introduced on July 1st, 1968 in the CEE.
 
To put it simply, tariffs are an economic protection for local producers in the country that imposes them.
But since we're in a context where a large majority of goods are produced in an East Asian country that I won't name, including intermediate components used in local production, it becomes complicated, as all economies are interconnected.

So if you increase these tariffs, it has repercussions everywhere.

We mustn't forget that the globalization of trade didn't begin today; we can look at the Republic of Venice as an example.

Returning to Audiophonics, which also imports part of its online offerings, the calculation must have been quick: exporting to the USA no longer makes any economic sense, their profit margin being negligible.
 
Returning to Audiophonics, which also imports part of its online offerings, the calculation must have been quick: exporting to the USA no longer makes any economic sense, their profit margin being negligible.
Audiophonics doesn't pay the tariffs, so it doesn't affect their profit margin.
 
Granted, so why did they abandon the US market?
While none of us but Audiophonics can comment with certainty, the prevailing assumption is two fold:

1) Their customer in the US has to pay the tariff, which makes their competitive pricing a lot less competitive.
2) The current hassle/delays/headaches of dealing with the non-direct monetary impact of said tariffs in regards to Customs clearance...one that wasn't touched on is if the customer, not expecting extra charges during delivery due to tariffs refuses the delivery, Audiophonics has to deal with refunding the customer and possibly eating any of the related shipping costs at that point.
 
Granted, so why did they abandon the US market?
You got pretty solid hypothesis in this thread.



Another issue for those of us who still can buy from Audiophonics is that they'll most probably stop sending their stuff to Amir for review...
 
While none of us but Audiophonics can comment with certainty, the prevailing assumption is two fold:

1) Their customer in the US has to pay the tariff, which makes their competitive pricing a lot less competitive.
2) The current hassle/delays/headaches of dealing with the non-direct monetary impact of said tariffs in regards to Customs clearance...one that wasn't touched on is if the customer, not expecting extra charges during delivery due to tariffs refuses the delivery, Audiophonics has to deal with refunding the customer and possibly eating any of the related shipping costs at that point.
There's also the instability part. Tariffs can change from time to time.
 
It's surprising if you think that the whole fuss is 15%.
The tricky part about it is that the goods must be only EU originated and not coming from 3rd parties (how would anyone can even prove that, certifications maybe?)

Strange decision indeed.

It's not just that. It's that things change all the time whimsically with threats of 30%, then deals are made, then they fall apart etc. It also causes customer issues when people don't expect to be charged extra for tariffs etc etc. It is a mess. Also for US companies that do a lot of international business, don't ask me how I know...
:p
 
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I like how they are very clear in where the extra costs are coming from.

I recently ordered a $350 set of microphones from the UK. In addition to the 15% tariff I had to pay DHL $35 for the privilege of paying the tariff. All in it was something like $75 more than it would have been otherwise.
 
Also worth noting that none of this makes US manufacturing more competitive in a meaningful way. You cannot compensate for an entire country’s economy being based on paying people pennies on the dollar vs US expectations simply by making things arbitrarily more expensive domestically. It does nothing to reduce costs to make things here or change the wage needs here for folks to feed and house themselves.

Unless you find a way to compete on a global scale it’s just arbitrarily making stuff more expensive. Even a country as big as the US needs to be competitive globally for domestic manufacturing to make sense.

If your society is okay with saying “I’ll forgo cheap electronics because I don’t want to support China” that’s one thing, but that doesn’t seem to be the case (based on iPhone sales) or goal (if there actually is one) and it seems most people going into this fundamentally misunderstood who pays for tariffs.
 
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In the US, tariffs are way to shift much tax revenue to the broad consumer base away from top income earners, just like sales taxes, as the total price of a product contains those charges. It is not progressive.
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As an example, my company works with a CNC shop in china.

If a part from them costs $250 I can count on it being $1500 from a US based shop. The lead time will also be 12 weeks instead of 4.

Even with a 100% markup I’m going to go with the Chinese shop if I care about cost and timeline and it’s not a close race. They are nice to deal with and their work product has been generally excellent. Half the American machine shops I’ve tried to work with act annoyed you want them to quote a job for you.
 
As an example, my company works with a CNC shop in china.

If a part from them costs $250 I can count on it being $1500 from a US based shop. The lead time will also be 12 weeks instead of 4.

Even with a 100% markup I’m going to go with the Chinese shop if I care about cost and timeline and it’s not a close race. They are nice to deal with and their work product has been generally excellent. Half the American machine shops I’ve tried to work with act annoyed you want them to quote a job for you.
This, x100

The vendor I work with for our PCB input boards is from the Far East. They do amazing work. Can get me prototypes for board changes very quickly (2-3wks), are reliable, and handle any issues promptly.

To get the same exact boards made here in the US would be about 8-10x the cost and take longer for production runs. And charge A LOT more for prototype/one off units.

Quality is identical between the two options.
 
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