Comment by Propelloni
5 days ago
Hey, thanks for pointing de minimis out.
For those not in the know (and too lazy to look it up ;)), de minimis rules for customs duties set a threshold below which no import duties are applied. The de minimis threshold for the USA used to be 800 US$ (and for now continues to be for all but imports from China), the de minimis threshold of the EU is 150 EUR. In other words, if you import goods worth less than 800 US$ into the USA from the EU no duties are applied. If you import goods worth less than 150 EUR from the USA into the EU, no duties are applied.
There is also a tax de minimis, which is a threshold when you have to pay sales and possibly other taxes, e.g. luxury, alcohol and so on. Obviously those taxes differ from country to country in the USA and the EU, and, for example, importing bourbon whiskey into Denmark would be more expensive than into Germany because of the way alcohol is taxed. But the de minimis determines when those taxes even apply. The USA leverages those taxes from a threshold of 800 US$ (again, not any longer for imports from China), while most EU nations set this de minimis threshold to 0.
Merchants usually combine all these costs (duties, taxes, fees, insurances, shipping, etc.) into something called the "landed costs" [0]. Relevant taxes and fees are higher in EU nations than in the USA, which explains most of the differences, but you are quite right, the WTO considers the USA's landing costs fairer than those of most EU nations (Germany is especially bad.) I have no special insights but I guess this is because Intra-EU trading is devoid of duties, fees and taxes (it is a free trade zone after all).
If you want to poke around a little in the various trading nations of the globe, [1] has a nice database available.
So, I do not agree with your conclusion that the EU is a protective lock box, but could improve. Thank you for pointing this aspect out. It is easy to forget about nuance and how complicated and convoluted some of these things can be.
You've done a good job of explaining the relevant de minimis rules, but you've deflected or minimized the EU's fault.
Inspection fees, duties and taxes make it so functionally no Danish consumer bothers to purchase goods shipped from the US. For Americans to then come rushing to our aid when us poor Europeans are getting a dose of what we've been giving for decades is ironic, to say the least.
When i wanted a DVD player, the cheapest near-mint one on ebay, including shipping, that had digital audio out was shipped from the UK, to the US west coast. This was ~25 years ago.
I ended up trading it for a Volkswagen Jetta. unrelated, but quirky.