What Happens When That 10% Surcharge Vanishes You have 77 days. On July 24, 2026, the 10% Section 122 tariff surcharge expires by law. Congress has to vote to extend it. There is no executive override. If it lapses, you save 10% on every container from China. If Congress extends it — or the administration swaps in a replacement — your landed cost math changes overnight. I have been sourcing from China for 15 years. I have never seen a tariff cliff this steep with this little

On May 1, 2026, China eliminated import tariffs on 100% of tariff lines for 53 African nations with diplomatic ties. Only Eswatini is excluded due to its Taiwan relations. I was on the ground in Shenzhen that morning when the first shipment cleared customs — 24 tonnes of South African apples arriving at Yantian Port, duty-free for the first time in history. The customs broker I’ve worked with for twelve years said he’d never processed a clearance that fast. No duty calculatio

I got a call from a client in March. He'd been sourcing electronics from Shenzhen for four years. No issues. Then his freight forwarder told him something strange — a routine factory audit they'd done for months suddenly required "special review." The factory got nervous. The audit got delayed. The shipment got pushed. Two weeks later, China dropped its first-ever comprehensive supply chain security regulations. Coincidence? Maybe. But anyone sourcing from China needs to unde

I walked a client through his P&L last month. He'd been sourcing drawer slides from Foshan for three years, margins were healthy, life was good. Then he showed me his April 2026 invoice. His landed cost had jumped 37% since January 2025. He wasn't sure why. I told him: it's not one thing. It's the tariff stack. Here's the reality: if you're an Amazon FBA seller importing from China in 2026, you're not paying one tariff. You're paying three layers stacked on top of each other

When I placed my first inventory order from a factory in Shenzhen, I thought I had it all figured out. Product cost: $3.50 per unit. Selling price: $24.99. Simple math said roughly 85% margin. Six months later, I ran the actual numbers and nearly fell off my chair. My real margin was 31%. That gap between what new sellers think FBA costs and what it actually costs is the most expensive lesson you will learn — unless someone walks you through every dollar before you place that

I've been sourcing from China since 2009. Fourteen spring Canton Fairs, fourteen autumn ones. I've watched buyers walk in confident and walk out broke. The mistakes don't change much. The prices do. The tariffs do. The shipping rates do. But the core errors — the ones that sink first-time importers and seasoned buyers alike — they're the same year after year. Here are the ten China sourcing mistakes I see most often. And how to avoid every single one of them. 1. Chasing the L

I've been walking the Canton Fair floors since 2009. Fourteen spring sessions, fourteen autumn sessions — I've watched Guangdong factories pivot from cheap plastic toys to AI-driven robotics. And this year's Phase 3 (May 1–5) feels different. Something's shifting. The 139th Canton Fair wrapped its first two phases with 245,000 foreign buyers. That's a number I haven't seen since pre-COVID days. Phase 1 halls were packed — the robot and drone zones sold out months in advance.

If you're an Amazon seller sourcing from China, you've probably asked yourself: "How much will it actually cost to get my products from the factory floor in Shenzhen to Amazon's warehouse in California?" The short answer is: it depends. But here's the real answer—an actual per-unit breakdown with real numbers you can use right now. I've been doing this for ten years, working with hundreds of Amazon sellers. The single biggest mistake I see is people only calculating the freig

Amazon FBA Shipping from China: Complete Cost Calculator (2026 Update) Let me cut through the noise. Shipping from China to Amazon FBA in 2026 costs between $1.50 and $12 per kilogram all-in. That range frustrates sellers because it's both accurate and useless. Here's what freight forwarders won't tell you upfront: the quote they give you covers maybe 60% of your actual costs. I've managed over 200 FBA shipments in the past three years. The sellers who profit aren't the ones