What a shock! One more piece added to the debacle. You know what's happening/happened. CDC recommends no covid shots for kids, and the insurance companies cover what they say. So parents will have to pay out of pocket. Most of the current in general are idiots.

Our purchasing options have always been limited in the US, and the current stupidity just makes it all worse. A few weeks ago I received a beautiful Gt 2x 4/4 (37961) from a shop in Holland. They were great to work with, had reasonable prices and shipped to the US. I guess that option is now closed to me as well.

I just received an email from Walter Menzel at Euro Rail Hobbies today about how this change is going to affect another long time dealer, limit my choices and raise my prices. If there was a reason behind this it would easier, but it just seems to be random and pointless.

They are trying to find a way to get the sender to pay the tariffs (fees must be paid prior to shipment) so that the administration can claim that the "countries" are paying the tariffs and not the US customer.
In Canada, parcels arrive at your door with invoice for duties, taxes and a postal handling (brokerage) fee included. This is how the tariffs should properly be applied in America, but these games that are being played are messing with everybody.
Shippers are simply going to refuse to serve US clients and Canadians (and others) may be caught up in this as shippers simply refuse to ship outside the EU.

Even if the sender pays the tariffs in advance, who collects it and who remits it to the US government? The end result will still be that the US customer sees those amounts added to their invoice.

Regards

Mike C