This is a direct link to what the White House put out on April 2 2025. This covers things that are going to be sent through the international postal system and through the US postal service from China and Hong Kong. The carrier will report the goods and pay the 30% or $25. So as we draw closer to May 2nd, shippers will need to raise prices or tack on an additional fee so that fee can be given to the carrier so that they can pay customs and border protection.
Other options exist.
Convoys website has options to ship through UPS or FedEx or other.
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Keeping track of tariffs around the world is not easy. It likely had something to do with zebralight deciding not to ship lights out of the US anymore. The flashlight shop in Texas named killzone also has a policy of not shipping flashlights out of the US.
The US is not the only country with tariffs.
The better question is will the tariffs cause existing flashlight collections we have to appreciate in value.
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That would be awesome. I could have a potential gold mine.
I can’t imagine how hard it’s going to be for places like Sams Club, Dollar Tree, Amazon, or WalMart to do business now.
I remember when I got something from the Convoy Store (not AE) back in February it cost an extra $6 in shipping+fees. When I got somenother parts though from AE, I dont remember any added fees?
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Would domestically produced lights go down in value if raw materials are domestically sourced? Or would it still be cheaper to import the materials?
I expect the effect of the tariffs will be that lights produced domestically in the USA will cost consumers more.
- Increased cost for raw materials will mean it costs more to make a flashlight in the USA.
- Tariffs include raw materials needed for flashlight production like aluminum.
- Due to less foreign competition and increased domestic demand, domestic producers of aluminum will be able to charge more (unless there is a recession which causes demand for aluminum to fall through the floor).
- More expensive raw materials means more expensive end product and higher price for the consumer.
- There are no domestic alternatives for the LED.
- Almost all modern flashlights use a high power LED, none of which are made in the USA. The only option for a domestic US flashlight manufacturer will be to import the LED at increased cost due to the tariffs. That increased cost will be passed on to the consumer.
- Less foreign competition for end product
- Since foreign flashlights will cost a lot more due to tariffs, domestic manufacturers will have less need to keep prices down to remain competitive.
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Kind of makes me wonder: just what % of flashlights are actually made here? I mean made here, not imported parts and domestically assembled. I know all of the major manufacturers (Streamlight, Modlite, SureFire, Mag) are all made from imported materials. Fenix, Olight, Nitecore, Acebeam, Lunintop, ArmyTek, etc all made in Chinese factories. Every Led or LEP module…made in China, Korea, or Japan. Batteries, made in China or Korea or Japan.
It will be interesting to see how it pans out for sure especially in May when the $800 minimum exception lapses. I feel bad for all the farmers and other business owners who buy Chinese made machines for 1/4 the price of a Cat, Bobcat, John Deere or Kubota.
In short, it’s going to hurt in more ways than one.
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Zebralight is made in China too.
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Here’s a question…are warranties affected by the tarriff?
There’s an addition 12.5% on flashlights for the existing tariff before all the punitive general tariffs were imposed, so it could be as high as 116.5%.
The vast majority of flashlights and flashlight-related items are sent through consolidation services and never enter the international mail system. When the de minimis exemption was briefly suspended earlier this year, these services quickly added DDP (pre-paid duty) options for sellers. Assuming it happens again on May 2, the likely outcome is Chinese sellers will continue to massively underdeclare the value of their products, with some combination of charging US customers an extra fee, increasing prices to spread the cost to other customers, and possibly just eating some of it themselves temporarily.
Postal imports are going to be a massive shitshow until they implement a better system. Last time USPS had to stop accepting packages from China because it built up a backlog of millions of packages within days.
The procedure in place (712 Customs Clearance and Delivery Fee | Postal Explorer) will instruct Customs officials to prepare a special form 3419ALT on which they shall prepare an invoice of the value and contents of the package and the duty owed. If multiple packages arrive on the same manifest, only one invoice is prepared encompassing all fees, values, and contents. A Customs officials must sign the form and enclose it in a special orange adhesive-backed envelope provided by the Treasury Department. The Customs official must write or print the tariff item number, rate of duty, and the amount of duty to be collected, along with a invoice for the recipient for the amount of the duty, plus an $8.85 processing fee.
The package is then sent to the postmaster of the local post office serving the customer. The postmaster is directed to mail a letter to the recipient containing information about the package and the amount owed, instructing them to contact a brokerage firm for further assistance for larger shipments or enclosing a check or money order for amounts due under $250 mailed and made payable to “Postmaster.” The Postmaster shall then deposit the payment and when a suitable amount of time is given to clear that payment, the package shall be delivered to the recipient.
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thank you for the excellent info!
The tariff on Chinese goods has now been increased to 125%, plus the regular 12.5% for flashlights, so 137.5%.
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do you think that will be included in the purchase price?
or will it be collected by USPS prior to delivery?
that would make more sense than:
I will believe it when I see it…
by the time all those staggered due dates arrive, I expect all the presently anticipated factors, will have changed
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The White House and customs and the post office have all acknowledged that the post office is not set up to be collecting fees from all of the packages from China and Hong Kong. So that is not going to happen. The executive order spells out that the packages from China and Hong Kong that are going through the USPS will be declared and paid by the carrier to customs before the packages are handed off to the USPS.
Having said all of that, I don’t think they are moving any packages right now out of China. I have an order that has been in processing for 3 days. The package is ready and the carrier is aware and acknowledged there’s a package waiting but it doesn’t appear that they have picked it up from the shipper. Although there was a holiday April 4, 5 and 6.
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Probably has more to do with the holiday than the tariff news, I think Chinese sellers have stopped trying to follow the developments after the initial shitshow in early Febuary and are just going to conduct business as usual as long as they can.
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Here is what some people don’t understand. When the carrier picks up the item they are doing so with a contracted price to carry the item to the US and get it into the hands of the USPS. And the price of the tariff needs to be paid by the seller as part of that contracted price. If the carrier doesn’t know what it’s going to cost to get the item through customs then they don’t know what to charge the seller. I don’t know what order these pictures will show in but look at the dates of what happened back in February.
I’m hoping that if that’s the case the sellers are sensible enough to only apply the tariff to goods bound for the US.
I think they can do that. Within the EU there is a lot of unity, but it’s mostly limited to the structure. So every country has a VAT with the same structure, but the tax rate itself differs per country. So Chinese sellers are already able to add different percentages depending on the country they send their goods to.
I bought an Emisar several days ago and according to 17track it’s been in transit for several days So at least in this case it got shipped out and is, apparently, moving as it should through the system.
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