JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
President Trump's broad-based tariffs await their legal fate after a Supreme Court hearing last month. It is the latest chapter in an ongoing saga full of jilted trade partners, on-again, off-again deals and dramatic tariff plot twists. Our colleagues at the Planet Money podcast think of it as an economic soap opera, a soap opera which they've decided to produce. Kenny Malone has the latest installment - The Tariff at the Door.
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KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: A doorbell rings inside a New York City apartment.
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MALONE: Then again.
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MALONE: And again.
JAMES SNEED, BYLINE: One of my biggest pet peeves is when people ring the doorbell multiple times.
MALONE: Planet Money producer James Sneed.
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MALONE: And at his door? UPS.
SNEED: It was unseasonably warm at the beginning of October. He's wearing shorts. I remember this.
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SNEED: I open the door, and immediately he is like, I have this package for you. I need a check for $60. And I was just like, my brain is not computing.
MALONE: Because James was suddenly in...
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MALONE: ...The Days Of Our Tariffs. Two months earlier...
SNEED: This story starts, as all great modern stories do, on Instagram.
MALONE: ...James saw a limited edition doll of D.W. from the cartoon "Arthur The Aardvark" (ph).
SNEED: D.W. is very headstrong, has lots of opinions. And at age 4, my kid is a version of D.W.
MALONE: A collectible gift for his little D.W. He ordered it - $60.
SNEED: They did have a message at the bottom, which...
MALONE: Did you read the message then?
SNEED: I did not read the message.
MALONE: Uh-huh.
SNEED: But I see the message now. Our products ship from Canada, and U.S.-bound orders may be subject to tariffs.
MALONE: Two months later...
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MALONE: ...James owed an additional $60 because, yes, there was a 35% tariff on Canadian imports, but also another $24 in UPS import fees plus a $12 fee to pay by check at the door. Now, UPS did tell us you can track your package and pay these import fees ahead of delivery, but if you don't, you will end up like James, getting asked for a check at the door.
SNEED: So my first reaction was just like, I'm absolutely not paying. And so he's just like, I can't give you your package until you pay for this.
MALONE: And so for almost a month, that D.W. doll has been in a warehouse while James decides whether to bail it out of tariff jail.
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MALONE: Will James pay? Will it be too late? And what might an expert make of James' tariff-at-the-door situation?
LENNY FELDMAN: Yeah. Hey, I'm Lenny Feldman. I'm the managing partner at the customs and trade law firm of Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, based out of Miami, Florida.
MALONE: And you guys been busy lately?
FELDMAN: No, not at all. Things have been really quiet around here.
MALONE: Lenny explains James' situation.
FELDMAN: I don't see it all the time, but I'm not surprised that it is happening.
MALONE: Because it used to be that packages worth $800 or less were exempt from duties under the de minimis exemption, which, earlier this year, went away.
FELDMAN: Now that you had to pay duties or tariffs - same thing - on these low-value shipments, you needed a party to stand up and say, I'm the importer of record.
MALONE: Well, is it not my colleague James, in this case?
FELDMAN: It could be, but in a lot of cases, the express courier is going to serve as the importer of record.
MALONE: DHL, FedEx, UPS will often serve as the importer - handle tariffs, paperwork, and charge a customer for that. And if you refuse to pay...
FELDMAN: Maybe they say, oh, you're not paying it up? OK, well, we're just going to trash this and abandon it. There's a lot of goods being abandoned.
MALONE: OK, so in James' case, do you think they took it back to the border and trashed it?
FELDMAN: You'd have to ask UPS (laughter).
MALONE: Meanwhile...
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MALONE: ...James did decide to pay his import fees online, but it's been days. No package.
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MALONE: Then one night...
SNEED: I got home, and on my front steps was a box from...
MALONE: It's not destroyed.
SNEED: Take out my handy-dandy...
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SNEED: ...Box cutter.
MALONE: He pulls out the D.W. doll.
SNEED: This - when I tell you this is my child...
MALONE: Aww.
SNEED: ...Like, this picture is quintessential my kid.
MALONE: So how much are you in total, 111 or something?
SNEED: Plus, like, a whole lot of heartache.
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MALONE: Was it worth it? Will the Supreme Court overturn Trump's tariffs? Will James order anything internationally again? Tune in next time on Days Of Our Tariffs.
SUMMERS: That special report on international trade comes from Kenny Malone and our colleagues at the Planet Money podcast. You can hear the full episode. Search for Planet Money wherever you listen to podcasts. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
