Soneil Chargers at Econogics - U.S. Tariff Impacts
Last updated 2026.02.22
30 years of Serving Clients Around the World, Still 100% Canadian
Update 2026.02.22: We thought things would improve with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Feb. 20. Sadly, not.
The IEEPA tariffs were properly ruled to be unlawful. They are a tax, and taxes are the purview of Congress, not the President. It's in the Constitution. The 3 dissenting SCOTUS judges should read it sometime.
As a result of the President's immediate resulting actions, new tariffs will be implemented 'soon', and presumably last for 150 days before elected members of Congress will be required to show up for work and honour their oaths of office.
The direct impacts on our business are that the cross-border chaos continues and the de minimis duties exemption is still not available to our customers, and a new tariff of at least 10% will be in effect, requiring all the same paperwork as before, but presumably on different forms - yet to be provided. Duties which were previously unlawfully collected by U.S. Customs are presumably never going to be repaid.
Therefore, our temporary moratorium on shipping anything to the U.S. continues for now. The continuing level of chaos for
shippers at the U.S. border means major couriers are simply tossing packages into the trash rather
than try to navigate the paperwork if CBP flags any issues (notably
UPS). In that event, tracking seems to be impossible.
Also, with tariff rates and categories changing on short notice, paperwork issues seem to be frequent.
In short, we
cannot reasonably assume that your order will be delivered quickly, without undue costs and administrative effort, or at all.
We hope to be able to serve U.S. customers again before long, if there is a return to sanity.
U.S. Imports Tariffs Advisory (2025.07.31)
For me, the U.S. is literally family and friends and places I have visited and cherish.
The current continuing upheaval and chaos around U.S. import tariffs is causing confusion, and supply line impacts. Just-in-time delivery is giving way to just-in-case inventory holding, which increases costs. Econogics has traditionally held inventory in order to respond to customer needs quickly, including value-add services, so that’s having only a small impact on us. What’s more of a concern is that our restock orders are taking longer and pricing to us is becoming variable.
Our bigger concern is that our U.S. customers are going to be impacted in ways they may not expect.
As the exporter, we don’t pay the U.S. import tariffs.
It is the U.S.-based importers – our customers –
who will pay those fees, and we expect that will come as a surprise to some. This advisory is to warn
our U.S. customers, many of who we have served for more than a decade, of the possible impacts.
Update 2025.10.14: shippers are now having to pay duties in advance, but tariff rates are not stable or well documented. If we have to pay the duty in advance, we will be adding that to the purchase price, so the customer will still be paying the tariffs, just with extra steps.
We are not international trade or tariff experts. We’re just a small business selling services and products we believe in at good prices with real support. So, you probably should not rely on us as authoritative experts on tariffs. Still, here’s our take on the situation as of August 1, 2025 (subject to change, apparently even daily). The chargers we sell are not CUSMA (USMCA) compliant, even though the company that makes them is based in Canada. CUSMA/USMCA was made for multi-national megacorporations, not small Canadian businesses.
Therefore, as of August 1, 2025, the battery chargers we sell will probably be subject to a tariff rate
that has not yet been announced as of July 31, 2025) though 35% has been mentioned.
Trump set an Aug. 1 deadline for Canada to reach a trade deal (still hasn't happened as of 2025.10.17)
and has threatened to impose a 35 per cent tariff on
goods that don't comply with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) (CBC 2025.07.31)
Further, many of our customers order very small quantities (e.g., 1 charger) and they need the units on an urgent basis
(e.g. for medical aids where the existing unit has finally failed after years of reliable service).
That's just not possible when it takes 1-3 business days to figure out the current tariff rates.
We are particularly saddened by the expected impact of the tariffs on those people and their families.
These orders used to qualify for a de minimis exemption
from U.S. import tariffs. Apparently, as of August 29th, 2025, this will no longer be the case.
U.S. to halt 'de minimis' tariff exception for all low-value packages (CBC 2025.07.30)
We are providing links to media articles for these new tariff items, because as of this morning (July 31), we cannot find any substantive information on them on any U.S. government website (directly or via web searches).
Clearly, shipping small quantities of battery chargers into the U.S. through established legal channels to people
who need them has nothing to do with alleged massive quantities of fentanyl crossing the border illegally.
We hope that this can all be sorted out so we can get back to serving people who need affordable, quality battery chargers.