Update: they have just announced a "pause" in tariffs for 30 days. Let's hope this pause is permanent.
On February 1, Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing 25% tariffs on all goods entering the United States from Canada and Mexico. This order also gets rid of the "de minimis" exemption, so even goods with a value of less than $800 are subject to the tariffs. Oh no.
Gauge is a Canadian company. We are a husband and wife team in Victoria, BC, who have been dyeing yarn together for over 10 years.
Last year, almost 60% of our sales were to the USA. A 25% tariff on every order we ship to the United States will have a huge impact on our business.
We have amazing, loyal customers who have been with us over the years and I believe that many of them will choose to continue shopping with us, but I know that's not realistic for everyone.
I'm writing this on Monday, February 3. The tariffs were announced on Saturday and go into effect on Tuesday. We have decided that it is too soon to panic (even though the pit in my chest thinks it's a perfect time to panic), and are holding out hope that things will de-escalate over the coming weeks.
On a practical note, it's unclear how tariffs will be collected. It's a massive logistical problem and seems unlikely that anyone will have the systems or staff in place to manage it by tomorrow. We ship the US via Chit Chats/USPS and this page has all we know so far about what the requirements will be and how this will affect our customers.
What I am going to do today, in addition to not panicking, is follow up on our recent US orders. If you received a shipping notice from us last Thursday, your package is currently at the Chit Chats warehouse in Richmond, BC, and will hopefully be processed and handed off to USPS today. If you ordered on Friday or over the weekend, I will email you to see how you'd like me to proceed. I think it makes sense to hold all packages until there's more clarity about the process. (Update: with the 30 day pause, we are fine and I will get your packages in the mail asap. Except we are getting snowed in so "asap" means probably Thursday.)