Dear U.S. Customers,
We would like to provide an important update regarding Japan Post shipments to the United States following the Trump administration's new Section 301 tariffs.
Under new U.S. Customs and Border Protection requirements, duties on affected postal shipments must now be paid to the United States Government before the shipment can enter the United States. This requires the duties to be processed in advance under Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) before the package is dispatched from Japan.
Unfortunately, this adds several additional processing steps to every affected package. However, please be assured that we are doing our best to help our U.S. customers and will work hard to ensure that these additional requirements do not affect the speed at which your orders are dispatched.
Additional costs
The DDP system requires the tariff to be collected in advance and remitted directly to U.S. Customs and Border Protection through an approved intermediary.
Unfortunately, the total cost of processing and remitting the tariff is slightly higher than the published tariff rate. Nevertheless, Goods Japan will ask our U.S. customers to bear only the applicable published tariff rate itself, and we will absorb the additional difference wherever possible.
The required intermediary also imposes a separate handling fee for processing each affected shipment. With considerable reluctance, we must pass this unavoidable handling fee on to affected U.S. Japan Post orders.
Forced labour
Goods Japan strongly rejects any suggestion that Japan is a haven for forced labour. Involuntary servitude is expressly prohibited by Article 18 of the Constitution of Japan, and forced labour is specifically prohibited under Japanese labour law. Goods Japan also vets its suppliers to guard against forced labour within our own supply chain.
We believe the Trump administration's use of forced labour as justification for imposing broad tariffs on Japanese goods is entirely misplaced and serves as a pretext for tariffs on products with no demonstrated connection to forced labour.
Reducing the cost
We encourage our U.S. customers using Japan Post to combine purchases into larger orders wherever practical.
Because the handling fee arises each time the tariff payment is processed, combining purchases can reduce the number of handling fees incurred. Larger orders may also benefit from discounted shipping rates, helping to offset some of the additional cost created by the tariffs.
What happens next?
The Section 301 tariffs are already being challenged in the U.S. Court of International Trade, with a summary judgment hearing currently scheduled for 30 September 2026.
The U.S. midterm elections will also take place on 3 November 2026. As Congress holds constitutional authority over tariffs, a change in the composition of the House of Representatives or Senate may create an opportunity for further action after the new Congress takes office in January 2027. There is, of course, no certainty that either the courts or Congress will change the present policy.
Goods Japan will continue to follow these developments closely.
We will continue to do our best
We deeply apologise to our U.S. customers for these unwarranted additional costs. We have done everything reasonably possible to minimise the amount that must be passed on to you and will continue to do our best to keep those costs as low as possible.
We sincerely hope that these tariffs will be rescinded soon. Should the Trump administration's tariffs or the associated DDP requirements be reduced or removed, we will reduce or remove the corresponding costs passed on to our customers as soon as possible.
Thank you very much for your continued patience, understanding and support.
Cheers,
The Goods Japan Team