That's transshipping: President Donald Trump announced Thursday evening that he would set new tariff rates on roughly 67 countries, which they could negotiate over the course of one week. The rates are supposed to go into effect on August 7.
New tariff rates for Laos, Myanmar, and Syria were set at 40–41 percent. Iraq will be hit with a 35 percent tariff. Switzerland will face a 39 percent tariff. The baseline tariff rate on all countries remains set at 10 percent—unless we have a trade deficit with them, in which case it is ratcheted up to 15. Anything that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can credibly claim has been "transshipped"—which, to them, appears to mean passing partially manufactured goods on to another country before they are shipped off for good, in order to avoid higher tariff rates from the original sending country—will be tariffed at 40 percent. "Transshipped has a current, actual legal meaning: it means the Country of Origin is improperly labeled," writes Charles Benoit, an international trade attorney, on X. "If a good is labeled as Product of Vietnam, but is deemed transshipped because there was insufficient transformation in Vietnam, then the product is no longer considered a Product of Vietnam, but some other country (China)."
