I’ve been labouring under the impression, the apparently misguided impression, that CUSMA was a real and useful thing. However, it turns out, in the absence of a De Minimus shipping amount (and in the presence of de-maximus insanity), I’m not sure anymore. The information around this has been very, very confusing.

If you’ve somehow managed to get this far without hearing about this, good on you. Also, don’t feel too badly; the day before William and Kate’s wedding Tito turned to me and sleepily said, “Hey, is some bigshot in England getting married tomorrow?”.

So here is the thing. Starting August 29th, the US will suspend the $800 de minimus entry that has been in place for years. That means that all packages entering the states, no matter how small, will be subject to duty.

There seem to be two main concerns. How to get the yarn past the border at all (that is, correct HS codes, certificates of origin etc.) and whether the customer will have to pay more to get it. And thirdly, whether there is enough Nutella in this world to get me through this mess.

I was under the impression that all but 4% or so of Canadian goods fell under CUSMA, but this is what I am getting for our tariff codes (and yes, our yarn is milled in Canada and qualifies as Canadian in origin).

This is sourced from https://tariffguide.ai

And this is sourced from https://www.tariffinder.ca/

It seems fair to assume at this point that someone is paying something that was not part of the original contract. That, as vague as it is, is the most that I can say with certainty right now. I’d love to know the amounts, but it seems to vary from 6% to 41% to up-to-$200USD-regardless-of-value-because-we-can-so-suck-it%.

Here’s what other countries think

“Postal services in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Italy said they will stop shipping most merchandise to the U.S. effective immediately. France and Austria will follow Monday, and the United Kingdom Tuesday. India’s government also said the country will temporarily suspend postal deliveries to the United States starting Monday” the AFP

What’s a Canadian entrepreneur to do? Here’s where I’m at:

August 25th – September 2nd: I am going to pause shipping for one week. This is because I won’t be able to get things across the border in time for the 29th, and because after the 29th I’d like to see where things net out.

My goal is to figure out how to pay the tariff on my customers behalf for all orders that were placed before the 29th. Further, I am hoping that it can be done in a way that allows the customer to have proof, so they will have recourse if someone tries to double-dip at the other end and charge them again.

During that same week I will not accept orders from the USA. Once the dust has settled and I can see which way the wind is blowing (metaphor city y’all) then I can get a plan together. Perhaps it involves building tariffs into my pricing and covering it at our end. Perhaps the customer will just have to eat the cost at theirs and I will end up losing tons of business. Perhaps I will have to stop shipping to the USA altogether which would likely crush us (this is not an option right now, because I do not like the idea of being crushed).

(Side note, during the Salem Witch Trials there was, in fact, a person who was crushed to death. Toward the end, folklore has it he screamed “More weight!”. Absolute Legend.).

This is going to hurt the company badly. Paying all those tariffs will hurt, and refunding all the inevitable requests will hurt. I have no clue, honestly and transparently and humanly here, how to get by that bit. And I can say that here, while mixing metaphors (the other day mom declared, in a fit of drama, that she could no longer “see the rainbow at the end of the tunnel”), and run-on sentences, and more than a bit of self-pity because this is my blog and I don’t shave my legs for this space. I gave myself a good cry today and ate several ice cream sandwiches.

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I bet I can make you laugh before you leave though….

Tito just does not have the flair for the dramatic that I do 

Him: “yeah, I was cleaning the backyard and I hit a wasp nest. Had to get the spray foam.”

Me: “So Tito managed to open the gates of hell in the backyard. The puzzle box from hellraiser. The rift from Pacific Rim. And the denizens of Hell, with beelzebub, kaiju and cenobites in tow came pouring out. It required armour. And so I put on a 7mm wetsuit, armed myself with wasp spray and went into battle to close the rift and emerged victorious.”

Moral: If it looks stupid, but it works, it ain’t stupid. Tito came out with 8 stings. Me? Zero. Yeah, I wore my goggles, too. And if wearing a wetsuit to ship yarn helps, then start the bath y’all.