What items are most likely to be smuggled to avoid tariffs?

[ChpBstrd]

Just out of curiosity, which items are the most likely to be smuggled into the US to avoid tariffs? I'm thinking such items would tend to be:

• Small or lightweight, for ease of inconspicuous transport, but high-priced
• Relatively liquid on wholesale markets or street markets
• Generally sellable to consumers without records, as opposed to businesses
• Easy enough to liquidate on informal markets that the relatively low ~25% (so far) margin + normal retail margins compensate for the trouble and risk

The obvious examples would be:

• computers, phones, & computer parts,
• auto parts
• precious and semi-precious metals, jewelry
• specialty manufactured goods like airplane parts or appliance components

These high value items could be brought over in undeclared luggage, transferred on boats, hidden in trucks, or nestled inside declared items.

What else can you think of? High-end tequilas? Medicines and medical equipment? Jewels and jewelry? Tobacco? Fashion? Specialty tools?

To some extent, it depends on how the social structures work out. Will foreign smugglers form cartels? Will mafias form around tariff evasion and create networks to supply retail shops with discount goods?

I think there are some things missing from my list that meet the criteria described above but aren't quite obvious. Can you think of anything?

[AuspiciousEight]

I'm really curious about why you're curious about such a thing, lol. :-P

My biggest guess would be entire new passenger vehicles, since they are so expensive already and tariffs would make them really expensive.

I doubt customs has the time to check VIN numbers, so simply getting a ride into Canada and buying a car in cash from someone, then putting American plates on it and driving it back to the US may work.

Or if they do check vin numbers, one may simply figure out which vin they are most likely to check and swap that one.

Vehicles are so expensive that it would be worth it for some criminally minded folks to put some effort into this sort of operation to avoid paying tens of thousands in tariffs.

I'm also convinced that a lot of people purchasing vehicles don't bother to check to verify that the VIN on the vehicle matches the VIN on the title anyway.

[Fru-Gal]

Ha ha ha ha I really can’t understand why anybody would think of such a thing. I certainly have never thought of such a thing recently. For example, I can’t imagine that someone would ponder the viability of purchasing some flat circular metal jewelry and taking it on a vacation. Outside the US.

[reeshau]

Given the border chaos, won't it just be easier to fake origin paperwork and bring it in the front door?

[GilesMM]

New side hustle?

[GuitarStv]

Software.

Software crosses borders instantly and doesn't need anything physical to be transferred.  It's the easiest thing to bypass tariffs on if the business is remotely inclined to skip 'em.

[Boll weevil]

I'm really curious about why you're curious about such a thing, lol. :-P

My biggest guess would be entire new passenger vehicles, since they are so expensive already and tariffs would make them really expensive.

I doubt customs has the time to check VIN numbers, so simply getting a ride into Canada and buying a car in cash from someone, then putting American plates on it and driving it back to the US may work.

Or if they do check vin numbers, one may simply figure out which vin they are most likely to check and swap that one.

Vehicles are so expensive that it would be worth it for some criminally minded folks to put some effort into this sort of operation to avoid paying tens of thousands in tariffs.

I'm also convinced that a lot of people purchasing vehicles don't bother to check to verify that the VIN on the vehicle matches the VIN on the title anyway.

If they have license plate readers at the border (and my guess is they do), there will be a mismatch in that a US plate is trying to enter the US but there’s no record of it entering Canada or Mexico. May be better off with a foreign plate entering the US and simply disappearing.

And then you have to register it with the DMV, and they’ll have to know the VIN.

[NorCal]

I think the small package exemption will keep most smuggling to a minimum.

For example, many things you find on Amazon are just things bought from places like Aliexpress or Temu and marked up for tariffs and an amazon premium.  The barriers to getting most of these items directly are negligible. 

[dcheesi]

I think the small package exemption will keep most smuggling to a minimum.

For example, many things you find on Amazon are just things bought from places like Aliexpress or Temu and marked up for tariffs and an amazon premium.  The barriers to getting most of these items directly are negligible.

Didn't they remove the small package exemption, at least for China? I remember that being mentioned specifically in one report (probably on Marketplace [radio show]?). I've also heard several anecdotes about people being told they have to pay the tariff themselves for individual items they ordered from Chinese drop-shippers, before it would be released from Customs.

Or perhaps that change got rescinded as part of one the many tariff policy flip-flops so far?

[NorCal]

I think the small package exemption will keep most smuggling to a minimum.

For example, many things you find on Amazon are just things bought from places like Aliexpress or Temu and marked up for tariffs and an amazon premium.  The barriers to getting most of these items directly are negligible.

Didn't they remove the small package exemption, at least for China? I remember that being mentioned specifically in one report (probably on Marketplace [radio show]?). I've also heard several anecdotes about people being told they have to pay the tariff themselves for individual items they ordered from Chinese drop-shippers, before it would be released from Customs.

Or perhaps that change got rescinded as part of one the many tariff policy flip-flops so far?

They rescinded the small-package exemption for something like 24 hours until it became clear that it was a complete disaster from a logistics standpoint.

[LennStar]

Fuel and intelligence.

[Gremlin]

Fentanyl?

[GuitarStv]

Fuel and intelligence.

If anyone was smuggling any intelligence into the US we wouldn't be having this conversation.  :P

[BECABECA]

Apparently, eggs:
https://m.economictimes.com/magazines/panache/eggs-are-now-the-new-hottest-smuggled-item-into-the-us-even-more-than-drugs/amp_articleshow/119054413.cms

[bacchi]

The "Butter Wars" is a fascinating bit of history. It resulted in souped up cars full of butter making the run from Netherlands to Belgium.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/de-smokkelaar

Just think, we may be repeating history right now with dairy tariffs.

[dcheesi]

The "Butter Wars" is a fascinating bit of history. It resulted in souped up cars full of butter making the run from Netherlands to Belgium.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/de-smokkelaar

Just think, we may be repeating history right now with dairy tariffs.

My wife noted butter as one of the things on our grocery list that has gone up quite a bit (along with eggs [duh] and I think maybe beef?).

[uniwelder]

Not smuggling, but a major method of avoiding tariffs is to shift the country of manufacture. Nearly all solar panels are made in China, but they’re now ‘Thailand’, ‘Vietnam’, Malaysia’, etc. China builds them, ships them to another country, attaches a component or two, and then ships to the US from there.

[LennStar]

Not smuggling, but a major method of avoiding tariffs is to shift the country of manufacture. Nearly all solar panels are made in China, but they’re now ‘Thailand’, ‘Vietnam’, Malaysia’, etc. China builds them, ships them to another country, attaches a component or two, and then ships to the US from there.

Oh yes!
Sausages made in Germany, with Irish pigs, fed by Brazilian corn and slaughtered in Poland. Or something like that. Sometimes the only production in... is putting the logo on the drill.

[uniwelder]

Not smuggling, but a major method of avoiding tariffs is to shift the country of manufacture. Nearly all solar panels are made in China, but they’re now ‘Thailand’, ‘Vietnam’, Malaysia’, etc. China builds them, ships them to another country, attaches a component or two, and then ships to the US from there.

Oh yes!
Sausages made in Germany, with Irish pigs, fed by Brazilian corn and slaughtered in Poland. Or something like that. Sometimes the only production in... is putting the logo on the drill.

I made a mistake.  The US is catching up on solar panel tariffs, so the countries I listed will (assuming Trump doesn't change anything) be included in the future.  This past November, the tariff increase was announced, and are set to take effect this coming June.  Therefore, Chinese solar panel 'factories' are now being moved to Laos and Indonesia instead.

Germany has a sausage tariff?

[LennStar]

Germany has a sausage tariff?

No, but the usual made in... rule that one step (last one?) of a product has to be made in that country.
Which of course means it's cheaper to everything except the last step in cheap countries. And this is done because we don't have tariffs.
(Not that I am pro tariffs in general. But e.g. solar panels would have made sense back then when China was extremely susidizing them. But instead our conservatives torpedoed regenerative energies. "But the 20K jobs in the coal mines!!!" "You just destroyed 200K jobs in reg. energies" (silently) "But those don't vote for us")