TikTok/samfricano
If you’ve been tuning out some of the news, and who can blame you, the current American administration has this very interesting economic strategy that goes like this:
Increase the prices of imported things by adding tariffs. Fluctuate this tariffs at random, leaving no one sure, ever, what anything will cost tomorrow, but generally making stuff more expensive.
And then…profit? The point is, it’s going great. Just ask TikTok user @samfricano:
“UPS just charged me $230 worth of tariff charges just to receive a package. Let’s rewind, shall we? So I was online shopping, as one does, and I found the cutest bridal set, so I decided I was gonna buy it. I added it to my cart, I purchased the set, no word of additional fees, nothing about tariffs, anything.”
“A few days later I get this email from UPS saying I owe two hundred twenty nine dollars and sixty seven cents. I literally thought it was spam. Anyways. It was definitely not spam. The UPS guy shows up to my door and asked me for $230. He was literally standing right there. I didn’t know what to do, so I just paid him.”
“I work in finance so I know all about tariffs. Maybe this is me being naive, but I kind of assumed the retailer would take that main impact of the tariff charge and then we would feel that like secondary impact when the prices start to increase. Definitely did not assume that I would be paying for the tariff myself. Especially when there’s nothing on the retailer’s website that even alludes to me paying any sort of tariff charge. Obviously this isn’t UPS’s fault, this is the government’s fault. But hopefully you guys can learn from my mistakes. And hopefully you don’t have to pay $230 extra for a top and skirt. Anywho, do your research before you online shop.”
@samfricano My wallet hurts lol. Fashion tariff PSA!! #fashiontariffs #fashion #retail #retailtariffs #greenscreenvideo
Everyone started explaining it to each other. Or trying.
The further you dig, the more of a mess it becomes.
And lest you think you’ll just ignore the charge, remember, this is a tax.
Who’s gonna take the brunt of the damage?
To be clear on a couple of points: one way or another, the end consumer will ALWAYS be the one paying the tariff, or at least the majority of it.
Also, “doing your research before you shop” is a great idea in principle, but it’s complicated immensely by a combination of ever-shifting policy and companies doing all they can to avoid transparency about what you’ll be paying.
But hey, if we keep this up long enough, all businesses in the world will…move to the U.S.? And then we’ll kick them out for being immigrants?
Does anybody remember the plan, here?
If you liked that story, check out this one about a delivery driver who gave two weeks notice… so his employer disabled his truck when he was 300 miles from home!