Not sure the news has arrived to the USA yet but many countries have temporarily halted shipping to the USA.

The reason being that the Trump's new import tariff tax goes live on August 29th and must be collected before shipping (from the sender), not on the US side by the receiver as an import tax like in most countries.

Letters/documents and gifts less than $100 should still go through tax-free (for now) but the removal of the "de minimis" treatment makes everything else taxable from the first $.

This requires clarification and a large overhaul of the current postal services around the world. It might take a while to be updated.

Brief list (not exhaustive):

• Japan Post Office - link
• Most European countries - (like France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Italy or UK)
• Australia
• New Zealand
• India
• Taiwan
• South Korea
• Singapore
• DHL suspended business shipments to the USA worldwide

I'm also having shipments to the USA... currently 2 in the postal services with only one (a single LD) having reached the USA before Aug 29th, the 2nd one might bounce and get sent back to me (a remote control) or pass under the $100 limit.

No one knows.

But from now on, I probably have to put a warning that everything in my LDDb Shop will have an additional 25% levied (goods + shipping) if the delivery address is in the USA.

Julien

I am thoroughly embarrassed that "my" country is treating the rest of the world, along with its own residents, this way.

Julien, Thank you.

Please keep us informed for Japan shipping specifically. Curious about a few titles available over there in your shop.
Reason will prevail. This situation is in flux and NOT static.

A period of adjustment will have the "spice flowing" nominally. The show must go on as they say.

Hang tough mates.
Keep 'em spinning .....

Cheers

From Switzerland

" Consignments to the USA

From 26 August 2025, Swiss Post will temporarily be unable to accept any postal goods consignments to the USA. This is due to the US government’s new customs regulations, which affect all postal companies worldwide. "

I Love the censorship on this forum. Thx again.

Shipping from USA to other countries has always been all over the place, its about what countries
have made deals.

Back in 2008-2010 oversize packages from USA to Australia went from 50 to 150.
Welcome to international commerce.

Now I can't even send anything to Australia without it costing a minimum of 30 dollars for a 4 ounce package.

You were trolling.

Anyway, Discogs seems to think that:



Julien

Discogs can think what it wants. This has happened before just not as public in the news every day.
Shipping to other countries have always been a political thing, again its happened before, nothing new.

A few weeks ago I ordered an Australian Hamtaro DVD from eBay. It was shipping from Australia, but thanks to the new tariff, it probably won't be coming here for some time. And for that matter, in my opinion, everything we Americans order online from Australia, Canada, Japan, etc., they won't be shipping them to our country ever again until the president is voted out of office in the 2028 elections, or the 2032 elections. Trust me, I had to live under his whole first term and no, sir, it wasn't pretty! And it's even worse in his second non-consecutive term now.

It's even protected by the Berman Amendment, which specifically restricts the president's authority to regulate or prohibit the importation of "informational materials", such as books, art and movies, which means they can be imported even from countries from otherwise comprehensive embargoes like North Korea and Cuba.

But, whether they'll actually uphold these exemptions is another thing entirely. I would imagine it'd require for the seller to actually fill in the necessary paperwork, which they might not know to do since people living outside the US aren't usually well versed in the US law.

The lie is the loyalty test.

I’ve been importing stuff from Japan and Europe since the 80s. It most definitely has never been like this before, ever, not even before our lifetimes, not even during world wars, I know it, you know just as well. There have never been blanket triple digit tariffs on goods from allies. There has never been a sales tax this high in the US, ever, and the money needed to pay those taxes does not exist so they will not be paid and therefore the buying and selling of things will slow down greatly until the bad idea goes away. There will not be any sustained period of these tariffs being paid. You know this as well as anyone who can count.

But the lie is the loyalty test. You have to repeat it. You’re chained to this cart and you’ll follow it over the cliff gladly.

And how did you get your Japanese and European sellers the money in the 80s?

I don't remember Japan being open to dealing with US until the mid 90s, unless you took a plane and went over.
Contacts were almost non existent back then when dealing with Japan.

FYI
I just saw on ebay that it says the buyer will pay for this fee once it arrives in the USA directly to the post office.

We need to make sure we aren't unnecessarily overcharging our customers.

I see they set up a dedicated page for this: https://pages.ebay.com/tariffs/

Interesting because it then becomes a normal import tax and only the buyer/receiver will have to bear that cost.
Much easier... if not painful for US-based people. Note that they usually add "processing fees" on top... for collecting the tax.

But the rest of the world has been paying import taxes from 7~10% (Singapore, Japan) to 25% (some EU countries) for a very long time.
When Brexit started, getting 2x Blu-Ray Audio from UK cost me... 50% in import taxes to France.

But then I don't really see how the "temporary flat fee" of $80 for countries with tariffs under 16%, $160 for those between 16% and 25%, and $200 for countries with tariffs over 25% will work in practice... It seemed that shipper would pay that one.

Note that Japan just moved from 25% to 15% import tax last Thursday.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/09/05/economy/trump-signs-japan-tariff-deal/

Japan Post is still not accepting anything unless it's "below $100 gift".



Julien

Yeah, this thing is going so fast I don't think we can keep up with it.
Good thing that people here in the USA have been massive consumers for over a century that we all have so much stuff we can
keep ping ponging our stuff to each other without getting bored until this situation gets taken care of one way or the other.

Yes, import taxes have been quite common in Europe. The postal companies usually rip-off another 30-50% of the tax on top. This is kinda extortion as they don't ask you upfront or give you the possibility to pay directly to customs. They just say: Pay or you don't get your property.

I sent a disc to the US a week ago and it seem to have arrived already. I used UPS.

Since we are editing and censoring this site for political views please remove this post from chris along with others.
Don't keep the political ones you like and remove the ones you don't.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

The only Lie here is from you.

You've never bought from Japan or Europe in the 80s, I have from Europe in the early 1990s and the
credentials you needed you never had.

Buying from Japan was only mail order from someone who you knew or if you were faxing to Japan in the 80s, which I doubt you were doing.
I was only in the mid 1990s.

Once YJ Auctions and other internet places opened up you had to be incredibly fluent in Japanese writing letters
in Japanese to Japanese dealers and hoping they would deal with you.

Then they started to sell on ebay and it made it easier to get from Japan.

JPN-Based Shops such as AmiAmi, Hobby Link Japan and HOBBY SEARCH have maintained US-Accessible E-Storefronts since at least the mid/late-2000's IIRC?

HLJ started in 1997. The guy, Scott, is from around where I live although the way the place is operating now makes me think he sold out to someone else. It’s kind of automatic and faceless now. The first thing I got from HLJ was the MG Zeta Gundam which was about a year old by the time I got it.

Places like Laser Perceptions, Books Nippon, Nikaku Animart, Mikado in SF, all predate eBay and even the public internet. Books Nippon in Chicago [edit: actually Kinokunia, I now remember…) was so impressive. Everything in it was Japanese market original but the store itself was massive compared to most Japanese stores. Mikado was still going when I was in SF in 2007 and still had LDs but the selection was not great and everything full coocoo crazy 90s pricing.

The first LD I ever imported was Nausicaa. I got it in 1992. It was special ordered through a huge video game shop in California…not Die Hard…something-tronix? It was a place that barely handled LDs so it’s strange I even got it from them. They may have actually referred to it as a “Warriors of the Wind” LD. I made $5 an hour back then, 40 hours a week. This LD took well over half my paycheck. It wasn’t expensive because of any US tax though. In fact I paid literally zero US tax since I was in Michigan. I nearly wore out my S201 from watching it constantly.

After that it was all Books Nippon, Nikaku Animart, and Laser Perceptions. I got all the Nausicaa LPs from Books Nippon for $10 each!

Between my first LD and HLJ I was pretty into the con scene and helped run a booth with some friends of mine called JAM Project or something like that. If you collect old Animerica issues you’ll see the ad. The owner’s name was Kevin and he lived on a farm in central PA. He had a sort of zero profit mail order model shop that also sold CDs. Most of it was normal plastic kits. There were some resin GKs. There was a guy name Wing that hung around who could get bootleg GKs for nothing. He also had binders full of phone cards. The resin was good the vinyl was terrible. The phone cards were shockingly expensive. The first show we worked was the first Otakon.

The first shop I dealt with, a go between guy sorta thing, was called Cosmic Connection. Like most places back then they got stuff in huge batches when individuals flew to Japan for other reasons and brought back tons of kits at once. It would take maybe six months to get your stuff. This was when Japanese model kits were fantastically cheap. The Cosmic Connection catalog was a typical photocopied zine kinda thing made out of bad copies of magazine ads and art books with hand written notes. One such note I remember in particular was in the Macross section. It specifically said to watch for Macross stuff in a show called Robotech and to check local listings or whatever. This was after Macross toys and models had begun to flood drug stores and flea markets and also after “Robotech” was launched by Revell, after the DC comic, but before the three shows got edited together and aired as Robotech so I’m going to say 1985 or early 1986. I would have been 12 or 13 years old and super duper into robot stuff or literally anything that looked like Battle of the Planets or Tranzor Z.

I sadly lost the catalogs ages ago but amazingly found the Cosmic Connection guy on Facebook in the 2010s at some point. I’ve long deleted my FB account though and have once again forgotten his name. He was in Florida living the retirement sort of lifestyle at that point and still into SF and such.

In the 80s all my Dragon Ball manga, Option magazines, and Kinnikiman stuff came from a school friend of mine who’s dad worked for Dow Chemical and did a lot of flying back and forth.

At no point during any of these adventures did I pay an VAT on anything. That doesn’t matter though because what I experienced doesn’t define reality. Nobody paid VAT on anything in the US ever unless it was very expensive or on some very specific list. We laughed at Europeans having to pay a surprise extra $$$ on top of everything else when the package showed up. No American has had this experience because until recently nobody wanted it. Saying it’s nothing new and it’s always been like this is some Orwell-esque b******t. I’ve been an HLJ customer for nearly three decades but only COVID and this have ever affected my supply. There have never been extra taxes.

Show me the VAT form that an American citizen used to pay tax on imported consumer goods after WWII. If people have always done it then this kind of documentation must be everywhere. I never throw anything away so I must have tons of tax forms line these, right?

No. Because this is all new and anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

This is confirmed on their website:



I did successfully ship today an Airmail + tracking parcel to the USA with a total (items + shipping) below $100.

EMS is now announced at 12 days and Airmail at 18 days.

Julien