Canada and the United States continue to respect the USMCA free-trade agreement concluded during President Trump's first term. "USMCA-compliant" goods cross the border in either direction without duty. This is almost everything you and I would buy. The tariffs you are reading about, on Canadian bulk aluminum and steel, for example, apply to goods not covered under the scope of the USMCA treaty. (I don't know why most things are USMCA-compliant and some aren't. The trade negotiators on both sides must have been listening to lobbyists, I suppose.) Canada got rid of de minimis exemptions years ago, officially, but that said I don't seem to ever get charged duty on imports of bike parts from the UK or Europe. Nor from the US even recently, even for parts that weren't manufactured in the U.S.


It's always been understood that import duties are the responsibility of the customer importing the goods, as a taxpayer covered by his own country's tax laws. (That doesn't stop some people from swearing loudly, banging the table for emphasis, that the exporter or the exporter's government pays duties to the importing country's tax authorities, for the privilege I guess of landing their goods.) The additional cost of broker's fees is also familiar to us. Someone has to go to Canadian Customs and pay the duty to get the goods released. You could do that yourself if you drove to the port they entered at. But if you want the courier service or the Post Office to do that to save you the drive, you have to pay him for his trouble.