Bad news for my US customers, I’m afraid, and bad news for me too.
The White House has issued an executive order that suspends the de minimis duty-free exemption for low-value items entering the US. Previously, any goods worth less than $800 were exempt from additional tariffs and charges, avoiding Customs altogether.
From 29th August, US customers will now pay a tariff on all international items, regardless of the value. Currently the tariff for goods from the UK is 10%, but the Executive Order (section 3) states that anything shipped through the international post system will be subject to a duty equal to the tariff rate applied to that country (10%) AND/OR a specific duty ranging from $80 to $200 per package.
You can read more about this here and here.
I have no control over what happens to your package once it leaves me, but it sounds as if every US purchase from me will be subject to these new rules from 29th of this month.
I would suggest that if you’re in the US and you think you might want to order some of my threads and/or fabrics, then now would be a good time. The new rules apply to anything arriving after 29th August, so as long as your parcel arrives before then, everything should remain as it currently is and parcels with a value of under $800 should just go through the system without issue. I always send overseas orders via international tracked post, which normally takes a week or two to reach the US. Unfortunately I can’t guarantee that any order placed now will arrive before then, but in normal circumstances it probably would.
Of course all of the above only applies to physical goods; digital products like my PDF templates and online courses (for now!) are unaffected.
I am sorry to be the bearer of such unhappy news, and I want to say an enormous thank you to my dear US customers (and many of you have become friends) for your valued support over the last few years. Let’s hope the current tariff/cost situation changes some time…
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Thank you for the heads up, Karen. 😣 Yes, that emoji defines MOST of our feelings about this here in the US! We are doing what we can to bring sense to this administration, and we hold on to hope. You are not alone with your heads up. Lots of yarn folks are doing the same. We will figure this out together, as we are Creative\’s. Onward and Go Well, Nancy V
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Thanks so much Nancy, and good luck with whatever you can do over there to make a difference. I understand his concern about keeping illegal items out of the country but for the rest of us trying to make an honest living it’s very harsh. Hoping for a less punitive solution and thank you for trying to change things 🤞🏻
Yes, unfortunately the US president’s appalling business sense is causing horrible effects. I don’t say ‘mine’ since I never voted for him ever. On the sunny side, I am very much enjoying your stitch journal class and took advantage of one of your yearly journal pdfs. I haven’t decided if it will become a cloth journal, or insert monthly spreads into my bulky daily journal, or make it continuous. I have till January 1 to decide! Thank goodness for the bright side of the internet!
thanks so much – that’s much happier news 🙂 so glad you’re enjoying your stitching. There are lots of options with the templates, as you’re discovering, and whatever you decide will be just fine. I guess it’s perhaps a good way to count down the days until you can vote for a new president too… just saying 😎
I’m so sorry this is affecting your business! You have no reason to apologize for the actions of the government… or of any one person who influences it😠. But thank you for the heads up❤️
thanks so much Maureen. This could affect my business very badly as I have a lot of very loyal regular customers in the US. I hope my little one-woman enterprise can survive 🤞🏻
It is a never-ending battle with unanticipated difficulties at the moment, isn’t it. Just ghastly.
Absolutely awful, yes. Especially coming right after the GPSR debacle, which effectively excludes all my European customers. Now the US as well 🤷🏻♀️
Hi Karen,
This heads up is greatly appreciated. I just placed an order for your wonderful threads.
I didn’t do the 2024 stitch journal and found that I missed those moments of quiet contemplation. Knowing what was likely to happen here in the US after that fascist criminal was elected last November, I knew I had to do a daily stitch journal to help temper my outrage. I quite enjoy this year’s template, and it’s interesting to see where my needle and thread take me each day.
I truly hope yours and other small businesses survive this ridiculousness. Thanks for doing what you do.
Thank you so much Valeria, I truly appreciate your support, both moral and practical. I think there is some satisfaction in wielding the needle as a weapon, and sometimes you just have to stab some fabric with it – and there’s definitely a case for doing that every day at the moment 🙂 He is quite a loose cannon, and this is going to be a huge loss for small businesses like mine. Hopefully the next president might relax these rules back to the way they were, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Threads will be on their way to you tomorrow.
I just placed a big order today 8/7/25. I had been waffling and now need to support more artists. I have several of you Teachable Workshops and love them. I am so embarrassed for my country.
thank you so much for your order Janet, I really appreciate your support. And thank you too for your kind words about the online courses, I’m so glad that you’ve enjoyed them. Threads will be on their way to you tomorrow morning ❤️
It’s a real shame that a third of the people in the USA were so misinformed as to elect this dangerous criminal. (A bit less than one third voted for the sane alternative and inexplicitly, one third of all eligible voters couldn’t be bothered to vote at all). Now we are all paying for the one out of three Americans who thought this was a good idea.
I’m so sorry that all of my favorite ahopa in the UK will be suffering because of this. Please know that two out of three of us didn’t give him our core, and we look forward to better, saner days in the future.
Thanks so much for your kind words, Peggy; such a shame for those of you who didn’t want any of this, and frustrating too. I totally understand; it was a similar situation over here with Brexit. About a third of the voting population voted for it; a third of us voted against it, and the other third didn’t vote at all. Great for the people who wanted it; very bad for those of us who didn’t. As a consequence of Brexit, I’ve now lost the ability to send goods to Europe or Northern Ireland. I’m frankly devastated to be losing the US as well – not just because of the business, but because I love my American customers and I love seeing what they do with my threads when they post on Instagram etc. I’d like to think there could be some sort of moderation to this policy, which seems to me to be impossible to implement consistently, maybe with the introduction of a new de minimis level that would enable you to purchase low value goods from overseas. Let’s hope, anyway.