A new round of U.S. tariffs took effect today, July 24. If you export to the U.S. — or run a cross-border e-commerce operation — the number in the headline isn't your first question. Where your goods physically are right now is.

Here's a point many exporters get backwards. In the U.S., the applicable duty rate is generally fixed at the moment goods are entered for consumption — not the day you signed the contract or placed the order. So a shipment loaded in June, still crossing the Pacific today, clearing customs next week, will most likely be dutied at today's new rate. The margin you quoted last month can quietly disappear.

So the first move is unglamorous but real: inventory everything in transit and everything sitting unentered at port, recompute your landed cost, and reread who bears a tariff increase under your contract — DDP vs. DAP, and whether a duty-adjustment clause exists. That single clause decides who eats this.

Now the part where I have to slow clients down. When tariffs jump, the instinct is to "route around it" — ship to Vietnam or Mexico, swap the box, issue a local certificate of origin, then transship to the U.S. as third-country goods.

Having worked in cross-border e-commerce before practicing law, my read is blunt: relabeling origin without substantial transformation in that third country isn't planning — it's a false declaration to U.S. Customs. That's chargeable as customs fraud: back duties, heavy civil penalties, potential criminal exposure, and your U.S. importer investigated alongside you. Enforcement typically tightens right when new tariffs land.

The legitimate path is genuinely relocating real processing so the origin shift survives a rules-of-origin test — designed in advance, documented, not a box swap at the dock. That line between substantial transformation and origin-washing is the line between planning and crime.

One thing to do today: sort your U.S. orders into cleared / in-transit / not-yet-shipped, and check the tariff clause in each contract.

Specifics depend on current U.S. Customs rules and local counsel. Send me your shipping timeline and I'll help map the risk.

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Mike Wu, China-licensed Attorney · Cross-border practice
4 languages (CN/EN/ES/JA)
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