Government Coup

[bae]

I loved that he devoted a whole tweet to furniture and cabinetry.

I kept waiting for one concerning pillows.

This is just a clownshow.

[Tradd]

I loved that he devoted a whole tweet to furniture and cabinetry.

I kept waiting for one concerning pillows.

This is just a clownshow.

I have customers that import furniture from both China and India. The upholstered stuff (chairs, sofas) as well as some cabinets that will get hit with these new tariffs. Will be interesting to see how they stack with the current tariffs.

These new ones will be under Section 232, which is the industry specific tariffs. The steel, aluminum, and copper, as well as auto tariffs fall under the same law.

These are separate from the IEEPA tariffs (fentanyl and reciprocal).

[flowerseverywhere]

https://apnews.com/article/doge-musk...ec2fd491d79b78

surprise. Remember all those cancelled leases? Turns out some of the agencies were never told and the leases expired with workers still there. So now there are penalties from the owners on top of rents.

plus they are hiring back some workers with seven months back pay because the departments can’t function without them. Who knew?

[Rogar]

If Trump is a clown show, I have to think in similar terms for people who voted for him and continue to support him, as well as his cohorts in Congress and his sycophant staff who all continue to enable him. The term is enablers.


I think his mental decline is becoming more apparent after watching him embarrass America in front of the UN.

[Tradd]

I spent time at work this week preparing for a fed shutdown. I went through a 16 day shutdown in 2013 and 35 days in 2018/19.

As I learned during the 2013 shutdown, the International Trade Commission website that hosts the US tariff https://hts.usitc.gov blocks anyone from using it. So I downloaded all the individual PDFs for all the sections to the public shared drive at work. Back in 2013, I still had my paper copy of the tariff from when I took the broker's exam in 2012, but everyone else where I worked for at the time had already switched from paper copies to the online version.

CBP'S trade system is called ACE (Automated Commercial Environment), developed back in the 2010s. There is a portal that importers or customs brokers can log onto to do some things. It's more useful for importers as they can pull all sorts of reports. For brokers, the main use is for filing protests to make changes or protest a CBP decision after a shipment has been cleared. The portal is so bad we say it has stage 4 cancer. Extremely non-user friendly, even with the major update a few months ago. I've filed the occasional protest in paper form for years. I finally struggled and taught myself how to file a protest electronically.

I also made sure we had access to certain FDA notifications of arrival on food imports via FDA's ITACS website, rather than relying on FDA emailing them out. https://www.access.fda.gov/itacs/#/ At the time of the 2013 shutdown, FDA was still mailing out a lot of the NOAs. Because they didn't have postage money, they couldn't mail them out. That's when a lot of importers and brokers moved to using ITACS more.

CBP has already scheduled a call with the trade on Wednesday to outline how operations will be affected during a shutdown. The uniformed CBP officers will still work, but a lot of the civilian employees will be furloughed. These are the import specialists, etc. The ABI reps (Automated Broker Interface, the software that bridges brokers systems and CBP's ACE), aka the CBP help desk, will mostly be furloughed, leaving very few reps to handle the entire country. I've worked with my reps for more than 10 years. Brokers are assigned to specific reps. This is especially bad with the new tariffs going into effect Oct 1. There are always issues filing clearances when new tariffs go into effect. Both the brokerage software providers and CBP programmers work overtime.

FDA inspections and related will be slower. CBP Agriculture officers will still be working, but I believe some are furloughed. Everything moves slower. This shutdown should be a better experience than 2018/19 since CBP and the other agencies dealing with imports had the experience of being paperless and offsite during covid.

[bae]

Meanwhile, Trump is sending in troops to war-ravaged Portland.

[Tradd]

Meanwhile, Trump is sending in troops to war-ravaged Portland.

The amount of money spent on the deportation program as well as the guard in cities is ridiculous.

[frugal-one]

The amount of money spent on the deportation program as well as the guard in cities is ridiculous.

AND, ludicrous amounts of money spent on stupid things like making a mega ballroom at the white house or cementing in the rose garden. Also, trump taking an entourage to sporting events…. lunacy!

[catherine]

Also, trump taking an entourage to sporting events…. lunacy!

As it happens, two of my sons were at the Ryder Cup yesterday when they saw this and sent the family a picture. (Air Force One in case you can't make it out)

ryder-cup.jpg

[Tradd]

AND, ludicrous amounts of money spent on stupid things like making a mega ballroom at the white house or cementing in the rose garden. Also, trump taking an entourage to sporting events…. lunacy!

The WH ballroom is apparently being paid for by Trump himself as well as private donors