03-06-2025, 06:08 PM
pdq wrote:
Jebus Christ. How’d you like to be a purchasing manager in, say, the auto, or auto parts business right now?
I know a parts importer. Not auto parts, but it's probably the same process and reasoning.
This is how I understand it from him...
The importer has a payor number, registered with Customs. Using this number, tariffs are automatically debited by customs from a cash account that is refilled with a rolling line of credit guaranteed by a bank.
If you know it's coming, you can arrange for a large tariff payment to come through as several smaller payments, or be delayed over several weeks. It can take a few days to set this up.
If huge tariffs are unexpectedly applied, it can consume the whole credit-line and cause any number of problems with the bank including extra fees and potentially cancellation of the account with the bank.
As a result of this uncertainty, they have frozen all shipments for now from certain countries. Anything that wasn't off the ship last week is still sitting on the ship.