Jill Weisenthal: Hello and welcome to another episode of the OddLotss podcast. I'm Jill Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway: and I'm Tracy Aloway.

Jill Weisenthal: Do you think you and I are going to start getting checks because they struck down the tariffs? Right. And according to economists, consumers pay the tariff. So if consumers pay the tariffs and they strike down the refund, shouldn't we get the money?

Tracy Alloway: I have often said, Joe, I buy a lot of stuff. Yeah. Especially from abroad, a lot of weird stuff. Sometimes I feel like I'm running a small logistics company. And I will say, so I know it's the importer of record who actually pays the tariffs and is supposedly supposed to get the refund. However, I've had a few instances where like the postal service will deliver something to my house, especially in Connecticut, and while they're there, we'll say, "You owe us like $50 in cash as a tariff payment." And I'm literally standing on my door

Jill Weisenthal: really

Tracy Alloway: paying out cash and it's going somewhere. So, I feel very much like I actually have paid the tariffs pretty much directly to the Trump government. Like, there is something very visceral.

Jill Weisenthal: I have some bad news to

Tracy Alloway: I know. I know. The person who did that was a con artist who showed up and they said and they they duped you into thinking that because I have never heard of someone having to pay cash.

Jill Weisenthal: You're not buy you're not buying enough from abroad. No, it's definitely true. I got the bill online and then you can either pay online or you can pay the postal guy in cash. It's very strange.

Tracy Alloway: I've never heard of that. Anyway, everyone wants their money back. How that's going to happen? What the time frame is? There's going to be major court fights. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal this morning and it said that the scale of the suits to recover it is going to be quote the same level is at isbestous levels which famously was you know multiple decades of lawsuits

Jill Weisenthal: also gave birth to an entire portion of the legal industry lots of messtheloma lawyers out there

Tracy Alloway: some time later I'll tell you I was briefly part of that industry as a data collector for it that's interesting

Jill Weisenthal: yeah it's fun anyway we got to figure out how it's all going to happen because we know all these big companies they want their money back. Of course, you know, there's new tariffs already in the like the Trump administration after losing one tariffs, they're like putting in a different one that's probably going to have court fights, etc. We also know that there was a popular secondary market in claims that Wall Street banks were facilitating. And so, this is going to be a mess. It's probably going to stand for years. We got to figure out how companies are actually in the process of get getting their money back and whether they'll ever see it or whether it all go to the lawyers.

Tracy Alloway: Well, this is the other thing. I know you and I live in perpetual fear of paperwork and bureaucracy and this in particular just strikes me as like the biggest nightmare of paperwork and bureaucracy.

Jill Weisenthal: I hate that.

Tracy Alloway: You know, for some of the tariffs you're like calculating them by like the proportion of like the tariff item in the thing you're buying. So like steel and aluminum, how much of this thing is actually steel? It just seems like a nightmare. The whole thing of customs seems like a nightmare. Still very antiquated. We got to learn more about this nightmare, about this chaos. And who do we talk to when we want to learn more about not the theoretical stuff that about trade that, you know, economists talk to talk about, which I love them too, but the actual nuts and bolts of moving things of course uh perfect guest Ryan Peterson, founder and CEO of Flexport, joins us today. So Ryan, thanks for coming back on Odd Outlaws. It

Ryan Peterson: is great to be with you. And Tracy, that person may have been an impersonator of a postman, but it is illegal to impersonate a postman. I tried to be one for Halloween and you can't buy a postman's outfit. I had to borrow one.

Jill Weisenthal: I made friends with the mailman and he gave me his to borrow, but he was like, I will get fired if anyone finds out.

Tracy Alloway: Guys, I'm just going to be very clear. It wasn't a scam. The guy had my package. I had the bill. I've received the package. Customs isn't going after me for unpaid bills. It's just weird. It's weird. But I think it speaks to like a lot of Americans will feel like they have paid these tariffs extremely directly.

Jill Weisenthal: All right, Ryan, let's just start big picture. You work with a lot of companies, etc. February 26, what are they all up to right now?

Ryan Peterson: Everybody wants to figure out if they're going to get a refund. That's the big question. And if so, when and how? and my ad what we've been telling. So Flexport is a one of the bigger customs brokers in the United States and and I think the most automated one the best systems for calculating this stuff and all that. That's my the only sales pitch I'll do here. But the um

Jill Weisenthal: it's allowed.

Ryan Peterson: So that is the giant question. And then they also want to know hey can I sell this now? You know, you mentioned the secondary market that the very interesting fact fun fact there is that that was those were trading at about 25 cents on the dollar three weeks ago and it went to 52 cents on the dollar on Friday the same day of the Supreme Court. Markets move very fast on this stuff. So, a lot of the companies I talked to in the last week have said the CEOs had said, "Yeah, they would sell at 70 cents on the dollar today and they're considering it at 52 cents." So, I think that market's really going to heat up. Um, but yeah, those are the big questions to ask and I do have opinions. I think I believe I have a very high degree of certainty like bordering on certainty, conviction bordering on certainty that there will be refunds and I don't think it's going to take that long. I think you're going to see refunds this year would be I'm going to put my name put my reputation on the line with that prediction.

Jill Weisenthal: Well, okay. So, the Supreme Court

Ryan Peterson: Not for you, Tracy. Sorry. I don't know how

Tracy Alloway: I've already resigned myself. I need to hire a customs broker actually is what I need to do. Someone like Ryan. But okay, so the Supreme Court struck down the majority of the tariffs, but the thing they didn't do is say like what happens next? How do refunds actually work? Do you get a sense of like did they have any idea of how it should work that they just didn't say or like they're just leaving it open to who exactly to decide the process of how this actually happens?

Ryan Peterson: Yeah. So, a little backgrounds here. So this started in as a case in the court of international trade which the administration lost. It then went to the appellet court which is the level below the Supreme Court in the appeal there at the appellet court. The plaintiff this company called Voss Voss something I forget I should have but there the plaintiff is a small business that was suing and they actually asked for a stay an administrative injunction a stay to say hey you have to stop collecting these tariffs while this gets worked through. You lost the case you need to stop now. And the DOJ in that appellet court filed a motion that said if we lose this case, if the government lose this case, there will be refunds. Like that's from the DOJ. They filed the motion. You can read it in the docket. They then lost the case there. It went to the Supreme Court. They lost again.

Tracy Alloway: The Supreme Court has sent it back down to the original first court, the Court of International Trade, and said, "Okay, you decide if there's, you know, how the refunds are going to." They didn't say anything about refunds. It just goes back to them.

Ryan Peterson: It it's just if you read the thing and I'm not a lawyer, okay, but I can read it and I make my own opinion. But the more the reason I really have certainty is I've talked to three different international trade attorneys who all told me 100% certainty that there would be refunds. And I've never heard a lawyer say 100% certainty of anything before in my whole life. So, by the way, the company that filed I'm looking it up, Voss Selections, it's a it's a wine importer in uh in New York. It looks like they have a really nice website. Their website is very funny because it has all these beautiful pictures and it says wines and then saki and other spirits and then there's a big thing called fighting the tariffs. It sort of looks ugly on their website.

Jill Weisenthal: That's epic. I got to buy some wine from this guy.

Ryan Peterson: They've done everyone a big solid here by taking this on.

Tracy Alloway: That's a future OddLots guest right there with this case to talk about it.

Jill Weisenthal: This court of trade, it's not like some UN court. It's a New Yorkbased US court.

Tracy Alloway: Yeah.

Jill Weisenthal: It sounds like it would be like the WTO or something like that, but this is a local

Ryan Peterson: No. No. It's a US court where they send these types of cases. In fact, there was another case that was brought in the DC circuit case, six circuit court, and they bundled them together into the court of international trade. Now, currently, there are over 2,000 cases before the courts before the court challenging AIPA, sorry, requesting refunds, effective challenging that they should get a refund. So, I think those will likely all get rolled into one and it'll go to court. Now, the Court of International Trade has only 30 days from February 20th was when the Supreme Court came out and they have 30 days to to make a ruling of what happens next. So, I think we're going to know pretty quick how the refunds, you know, that there will be refunds.

Tracy Alloway: Just to be clear, is part of the reason that there is this confidence, I mean, the law is the law, I guess, but is because of that DOJ comment prior to the Supreme Court pre-indicating that if you guys reverse this, we're going to have to make refunds. Is it is that part of the reason that the lawyers have such confidence because they've already stated that as part of their arguments against striking down?

Ryan Peterson: Exly. I mean, just think about, look, I'm not a lawyer and you're always going to find some lawyers that will show some gray area, but I've talked to three that had just pure certainty and you know, just imagine that you're going back to the same judge and you're saying, hey, you know, you're trying to fight the refunds and your judge is going to go like, well, you filed this paper, you know, this motion in my court that said you would give a refund if you lost. Like, why are you not honoring that saying? So,

Jill Weisenthal: but there's there's complexities here. I'm not a legal expert. I'm more of a customs tariffs expert. So,

Tracy Alloway: so maybe before we go any further, let's just talk about who actually is paying the tariffs when like, you know, an item gets made abroad and then it gets imported by, I don't know, a shipping company and then it goes through a customs broker and then it actually ends up at a store and then it gets bought by whoever. Who is the entity that is actually paying the tariff? So, the importer of record that supposedly is going to get this refund. Yeah, it is that's the legal term for it is the importer of record and it's generally a US business. In your case, you did it as an individual. You may or may not have been the importer of record on that transaction.

Jill Weisenthal: Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was like the actual shipping company, but whatever.

Ryan Peterson: And with small parcel, that was that's what happened. And that's very relevant because FedEx this week sued the government for a refund. And my initial reaction was like, wait, I don't understand. Like FedEx doesn't pay the tariffs. Their customers do. But it turns out for a small parcel, what I didn't I'm not in the small partial business, small parcel business, so I didn't realize this really, but is that if you're getting a parcel delivered, although you are sent a tariff bill by FedEx, FedEx is the importer of record, they pay the tariff. So the refund comes to them,

Jill Weisenthal: they don't have to give it to you legally until they'll probably get class action lawsuit by a bunch of Tracy's and your friends and everybody else out there. or you know it's also just brand damage if they don't if they get the money from the government and don't do it I don't know it seems like a bad look so that's the case of small parcel in you're importing containers that's the business that we're in ship large volume stuff the importer of record is is a US entity but it doesn't have to be in in actually United States UK Hong Kong are the only countries in the world if we want to count Hong Kong as a country the only places in the world that allow non-resident importers so it's a foreign importer of record until April of last year that was about 9% of US trade since April it went to 20%. Uh it's been an explosion of companies 11% of trade flipped to where the foreign company imports it and so actually about 20% of the refunds I don't know in dollar value but 20% of the companies getting a refund will be foreign companies and that nothing is going to piss Trump off worse than that. We're literally going to wire this money overseas. Can you explain what changed since liberation day such that it made sense for a lot of foreign companies to establish themselves as importers in the US?

Ryan Peterson: Yeah. So what what changed was a massive incentive to commit fraud. And if you're a US company that was buying goods from overseas, you have to pay the tariffs, right? And you you declare your goods, you pay the tariff as a percent of the value of those goods. If instead you say, "Hey, I'm just going to buy the goods in the United States from my factory

Jill Weisenthal: and they'll take care of the tariffs and that foreign company can just undervalue the goods and say, "Hey, this thing that you know, it's actually only $10,000."

Tracy Alloway: Oh,

Jill Weisenthal: not a h 100,000. And you just reduce your duties by 90%.

Tracy Alloway: Oh,

Jill Weisenthal: and the US companies are doing this in mass and washing their hands and saying, "Hey, I you know, I didn't know any better. I didn't know they I don't see any of that. I'm just buying the goods from this foreign company and it's not my problem. And so we've seen a huge explosion of that. And all those people are not those US companies, by the way, they don't import anything. So they're not getting any refunds at all. And I don't feel bad for them.

Tracy Alloway: Uh yeah, you got to imagine when you have something like these tariffs come into play, you're going to see some creative work creative, you know, with for listeners with air quotes around there.

Ryan Peterson: Yeah. And where we started, Tracy, was you were talking about an individual case where you actually bought something from abroad. But of course, the massive things is, hey, you just buy it domestically from a company. They did raise their prices for the tariffs in a lot of cases.

Jill Weisenthal: They're you're not going to get any refunds. But the really interesting shakeddown that's happening

Ryan Peterson: is, okay, let's say you actually are a wholesaler and you sell to Walmart, Target, these types. Your tariffs went up, you raised prices. Walmart. I talked to a company last night who's a big seller on Walmart, wholesaler to Walmart, and they said Monday morning Walmart called and said, "Hey, we need to talk about this tariff refund."

Tracy Alloway: Oh.

Ryan Peterson: And how we're going to get

Jill Weisenthal: because they, you know, they don't have a legal obligation to give money to Walmart, but Walmart also doesn't have a legal obligation to keep carrying their product in the stores, right?

Tracy Alloway: So, there's some influence they could exert. Actually, this reminds me. So, one of the things I was wondering, and again, this comes from my personal capacity of bringing strange items into the US, but I bought like an antique box recently, and antiques I'm pretty sure are supposed to be exempt from the tariffs. But I still got slapped with a tariff charge because the exporter, the person sending it to me, did not label it as an antique. They labeled it as box, which was very, it was a box within a box. It was very annoying. And so, it got a big tariff. How much flexibility do importers in the US have over like the actual labeling of the items that they're bringing into the US? Is that one way that you could potentially, you know, try to lower your your tariff burden?

Jill Weisenthal: Fraud advice from Peterson.

Ryan Peterson: It is it is uh it is illegal. So you you each product has one and only one harmonized classification. We call it harmonized schedule code. It's a classification. That said, it is not always obvious at what the right one should be and there's a whole art of classification. It's a very difficult and it but it's illegal to choose your classification based on duty rate.

Jill Weisenthal: You know, you got to choose it based on what's correct. Now, if the correct duty rate should happen to be lower than the incorrect one, then you're doing a great job at life. And so, that's a whole that's a whole art and science is how do you make the case prove it that you that you did in fact get the right HS code classification.

Tracy Alloway: I want to talk more obviously about the logistics of the next several weeks and months about how this is going to be, but just in terms of maybe not necessarily fraud per se, although that was very interesting. What else have you seen basically since last April in terms of companies rerouting any of their, you know, what are the big trends in terms of restructuring the direction of the supply chain? Because part of the question to my mind is going to be with ongoing uncertainty about the future of tariffs and there's already a new tariff and Trump may try to restore the old tariffs in aggregate through other means and so forth. Have there been changes in trade flows that you expect companies are just going to keep because at this point this is the new normal and it's not sort of worth going back.

Ryan Peterson: For sure. Lots of manufacturing has been moving towards Southeast Asia and Latin America kind of the two big winners. Turkey a few other locations where you're seeing stuff that can shift move. I I think the most interesting and not immediately obvious, the most interesting trend has been that it's actually in many cases Chinese companies setting up factories in these countries. And so it's like literally you're working with the same company you worked with before and they've cloned the line. In many case, they've sent Chinese workers to manage the line.

Jill Weisenthal: Yeah.

Ryan Peterson: And so it's not that as far as the money flows, like it's still kind of going straight back to China. In a lot of those cases, people are frustrated because the quality is just a lot worse. It's not easy to just pick up shop and move the manufacturing. I mean, you're just adding layers of cost here. And a lot of what's happening is in order to change the the country of origin.

Jill Weisenthal: It's not just you can't just ship it to that country and then ship it to the US. That would be called trans shshipment. And the US, one of these recent executive orders did this like new tariffs on trans shipments. But it was just a ridiculous concept that shows that the government doesn't understand their own rules because if you just ship it to Vietnam and then ship it to the United States, it's still a product of China. So there's no tariff on trans shipments. It's just the tariff on the Chinese goods. So that that law was nonsens that executive order was totally nonsensical. You have to actually create and show that you have trans it's called substantial transformation. You have to show that like okay I've assembled products in this country. I've added enough value whether it's through labor or other components to make it a product of Vietnam. But of course by definition that's just adding costs and then transit times too because Vietnam is further away than China. There are less direct ocean sailings etc. So it's been very difficult for people to navigate. We've I said that would be my last sales pitch earlier, but we do have a free tool for this as well. It's at atlas.flexport.com. You can see the tra transit time between any two ports in the world like the actual like how it moves. So, this has been quite helpful for people to go navigate. Uh, and tariffs.flexport.com helps you see what the tariff rate is.

Tracy Alloway: Always be pitching, right? Code.

Ryan Peterson: It's fine.

Jill Weisenthal: They're free tools, so I don't feel like I'm trying to audience.

Tracy Alloway: So, one of the reasons the story is so interesting is obviously there's a logistical element. There's an economics element, but there's also this political element. I feel like all of economics nowadays is pretty political. But in any case, you know, Trump has said that the American consumer doesn't pay the tariff and yet it seems we are very much about to talk a whole lot about how much money American consumers might be owed from tariff refunds. Do you get the sense that any companies are sort of caught between a rock and a hard place where you know like maybe they would like to pay out some of their refund to their customers, but at the same time they also don't want to make huge announcements about returning money that Trump says was never taken away in the first place.

Ryan Peterson: Yeah, I mean it's definitely those the FedEx, UPS, DHLs of the world that are in that condition. I USPS will be an interesting one. I'm not sure if, you know, it'd be interesting to go look at those parcels he didn't see. Was it actually USPS or was it FedEx? Because if it was USPS,

Jill Weisenthal: presumably you are the import of record, but maybe it's USPS. That would be a kind of a crazy case actually if USPS doesn't give back the money that they charged you. That would be a great class action.

Ryan Peterson: Yeah, those are probably the one. But it's really just like a brand and business question more so than a legal one. I think

Jill Weisenthal: maybe they want to piss off the Trump administration. By the way, I might just spend the rest of this conversation only half paying attention because I'm now playing a playing at atlas.flexport.com. It's really cool like clicking all these ports and seeing all the routes and seeing how long it typically takes from one route to another.

Tracy Alloway: Like

Ryan Peterson: I know it's amazing.

Jill Weisenthal: I think you've done a is very helpful. This is really fun website you you built.

Ryan Peterson: Global trade has been this mysterious black box for centuries and now you can just see how it actually works. Where do the ships go? It's like the bus routes, you know, what's what ports do they stop at? How long do they take?

Tracy Alloway: No, this is a really fun uh website. So, thank you for plugging it. So, okay, tell us actually about I guess because you're you're highly automated and digital, etc., do all companies have really good records on this stuff? Is it very clear just from a sort of over the last year? Would you say the vast majority of companies know exactly how much they've paid unambiguously?

Ryan Peterson: I would say they do not, but they can very easily. So the US customs technology system is called ACE automated commercial environment and customs brokers love to complain about this. It's like healthcare.gov like times a million in terms of debacle of engineering problem but it works. It took them like a decade longer than it should have to launch the thing. And you can every importer that does entries like commercial customs entries not the Tracies of the world shipping a package to themselves but like real customs entries of of formal entry. All those entries are available to you. So you can see your past history. You have to just go to and you have to have an ACE account. If you don't, you got to go create one. And if you want a refund, you must have an ACE account. They've until about two months ago, no, until February 6th, all refunds were done via paper checks from the Treasury Department from customs. And we Plexport has gotten over $900 million worth of refunds for our customers in the last 5 years from customs. One of my most proud life achievements. And all of those came via paper checks. Many of them got lost in the mail. Some of them got cashed by scammers, etc. So, this was on February 6. They updated so that now refunds will be electronic, which was actually maybe a sign that they kind of had a sense of what was here to come. But yes, your ACE account does show you your entire past history of all your imports. And if you go to tariffs.flexboard.com at the top, you can upload that and we will just show you exactly how much money you're owed. And we got about 70 Fortune 500 companies signed up in the last week.

Jill Weisenthal: Wow. starting to calculate these tariffs and CFOs are coming to look as again it's a free service you can just go look up your tariff refunds.

Tracy Alloway: Do you get any sense from your clients of you know I I'm pretty sure they're excited about potential refunds but do you get any sense of what they're going to do with them? Is it just you know fill the hole that was left from paying the tariffs in the first place or does this count as like a windfall payment that they could potentially hold on to and use to invest or whatever?

Ryan Peterson: Yeah, these are uh sick and demented people who have an addiction to just buying inventory and they're going to just buy a lot more stuff and try to grow their business. No, I'm joking. But I assume that that's what'll happen is you everyone's an optimist. You get a lot of money. Most lottery winners go broke. Although that might not be it might be an urban legend, but I think they will go reinvest in their business in ways that may not make sense. And I've been advising people, you know, keep put it in your bank account, buy something, you know,

Jill Weisenthal: save it for the next round of tariffs presumably. So this is a So this is actually what I was going to ask which is so already there's this new 10% tariff. One of the things I think I saw was that in his latest truth social post he said 15%. But that actually it's 10 like the actual formal thing is 10%. What is the current state of tariffs as you see them?

Ryan Peterson: It's currently 10% that section 122 is 10%. They was a legal limit of 15 and that's what he did the next day. First, he announced 10 on Friday after the Supreme Court, like an hour or two after, then the next day on Saturday went to 15. I thought he was going to wait at least until the hockey gold medal match and just like if Canada won then put the 15% in, but like he jumped the gun on that.

Tracy Alloway: But did he put the 15% on cuz what is the ter?

Ryan Peterson: He did, but he did it via I think Truth Social or some other post. That's not how the laws work. So, you have to actually publish it through the Code of Federal Regulations and they haven't done that yet. So, we're waiting for like official word, which you know, usually it's a couple of days lag from when he says something. So, it's still 10% as of today, but I would expect, you know, maybe by the time this episode airs it goes to 15.

Jill Weisenthal: Tracy, did you know, speaking of the gap between announcement and formal thing that technically Kevin Worsh hasn't been nominated yet? Because there's a part he has like send it to it hasn't been sent and his odds on Poly Market were at 99% the day after the announcement and they're now like 96%. So people are wondering what's up with Anyway, just throwing that out there.

Tracy Alloway: I should just say we're recording this on February 26 because again all of this stuff seems to change day by day if not hour by hour. So that's the discuss

Ryan Peterson: it's very fluid and the the section 122. It's the section 122 of the trade act of 1974. And that's what gives the that's one of the several tools. I I would say that Trump probably he lost AIPA in the Supreme Court. He has at least four other acts of Congress that have delegated trade a tariff authority to the president under certain conditions. I was the one that they never been used before for tariffs always for sanctions and b outright bans and on trade that the reason they liked it it was under their interpretation. It gave them blanket authority just to do what they wanted whenever they wanted on demand. like he could just wake up in the morning and just like you get a terror if you know you look at him the wrong way and you get a terror.

Jill Weisenthal: That seems like it was in Switzerland specifically, right? Didn't he say specifically he was just annoyed but or

Ryan Peterson: I forgot. Yeah, I wouldn't surprise

Tracy Alloway: what you're describing was not actually a hypothetical.

Ryan Peterson: No, I mean that was basically what he was doing Canada a couple of times etc. So the other ones require they have much more formal mechanisms that will require like the commerce department or USR to do some re you know do something and go run a report go demonstrate that in fact this country and this sector are being anti-competitive and they're doing something and then punish them. Now 122 is the one that he put in. It has relatively blanket authority but it has a it has two limits on it. One is that it's a maximum of 15% which we just talked about and the other is that it's a maximum of 150 days and that'll go until July 20th of this year. And so then what you should expect is like between now and July 20th that he was he'll be using these other mechanisms of which there's section 301 that's the famous China tariffs from his first term were section 301 tariffs. Those have not been challenged. He's been able to maintain those and then section 232 and 232 is on national security grounds. That's what the steel and aluminum tariffs have come in on. They that's not getting challenged or if it has they won the case or will win the case. It's reasonable to say that steel and aluminum are na important national from a national security perspective. However, he also used section 232 to impose furniture tariffs on national security grounds. And I think that's a little bit of a stretch. Personally,

Jill Weisenthal: couches, comfy couches are a security issue. I would argue. I imagine on July 20th what's going to happen is we'll have like a one day tariff jubilee or a 15minute tariff jubilee and then they just get re-extended for another 120 days. Right.

Ryan Peterson: That was my prediction. I think I talked to a couple trade lawyers about that prediction and they told me that yes he might do that but there's no way that that would hold up in a court. So

Tracy Alloway: Oh interesting. Okay.

Ryan Peterson: It's one thing what Trump does versus what a court finds to be legal. We we'll find them

Jill Weisenthal: going back to the way these tariffs were originally described by the administration. The whole idea was bringing jobs and industry back to America. And like some of the justification seems to have morphed since then. At the State of the Union address, Trump was talking, I think, about how he used tariffs as like a tool of political power to influence countries and get them to do other stuff that he wanted. But again, when you look at your customers, do you get the sense that these tariffs have been successful in their original goal in shifting economic activity back to America?

Ryan Peterson: It's a little hard to parse out. I mean, like a lot of our customers are importing goods, so they're not the ones. The exporters, you know, I've met as many companies that export that said that these tariffs actually hurt them because they import components,

Tracy Alloway: right?

Ryan Peterson: And it makes it uncompetitive. You import a component, you got to pay a duty on it. And if they were to put that factory in Mexico, they wouldn't pay the same duty. They could import the goods. And then if they're if they're selling in the US, fine. It's like one way or the other, it's the same. But if you're selling it into Europe or you're shipping it abroad, then it really makes that manufacturing less competitive. It's probably a little hard to parse out though because we we're going through this incredible AI capex buildout that you know there's a lot of industrialization happening. A lot of a lot of stuff like in general in theoretical grounds like tariffs are good for manufacturing in purely economic theoretical world but these things are like I think much too complex to be centrally managed by the state is like the great lesson of the last century.

Jill Weisenthal: I do think the point about tariffing imported components for you know because we don't in theory we don't want to just build stuff here. We want to build complex highv value ads

Tracy Alloway: and then sell it to other people

Jill Weisenthal: and sell it supposedly. But yeah, if your input costs go up because here's this one piece of metal or whatever it is, then that does uh make the cost of doing business higher in the United States. But on the AI, I'm curious just setting aside all the tariffs since you brought up the AI boom that's creating its new different trade flows, incredible imports from Korea, right, for memory chips. So those prices are going insane. And I think I saw a stat just uh the pure level of importing that we're doing from Taiwan uh is just staggering all because of chips etc. But what else are you seeing interesting in terms of trade flows because of all this AI activity that's going on or do you see any fingerprints of that?

Ryan Peterson: Yeah, you see a lot in the air freight market especially because the one of the Trump administration crackdowns was the end of dimminimous shipping which was if you ship something less than $800 you didn't have to pay customs duties on it and that was just this huge boom it had been 50% of the world's air freight and so when that ended back in I think it was in May for China they stopped they ended that program all the experts including me went on the record and said hey the price of air freight is going to collapse because it's 50% of the world's air freight is dimmin ous shipments from Asia, from China mostly and that's all going away and so the price going to collapse. Well, it turns out price of air freight has stayed sta stable stayed high because there's so much so many components for data center buildouts getting flown around the world. It's more than made up for the drop from the dimminimous shipping.

Jill Weisenthal: that dimminimous exception, the 800 exception, that always reminds me of, you know, the charts that you see of men's like self-reported heights where like no one is 5'8 or 5'9. Everyone is either like shorter or 510 and above. Like all the shipments were either, you know, like less than 800 or a lot more than 800 and like nothing just around there.

Tracy Alloway: What happened though? Cuz I thought they were going to kill like Shien and Timu and some of these things with the dimminimous stuff. Did any what happened with those businesses?

Ryan Peterson: Those guys are actually do they're doing pretty well. It turns out it wasn't just tariff arbitrage. So that's also part of the story on the air freight market that we got wrong is like they're doing okay. And that one thing they've set up fulfillment centers in the US. They've set up some pretty big automated networks that probably like 20% of the size of Amazon's network now is these fulfillment centers for Chinese ecom run by Chinese e-commerce companies. is really a massive kind of an under reportported thing there. And they're also they're still flying it from China. They're paying the duties. One of the most interesting facts I learned this year actually is that Sheen does they 40 billion of sales 40 billion of revenue last year and no purchase order that was made from Sheen to its factories was more than 200 items.

Jill Weisenthal: So you're talking like tens of millions of little tiny granular purchases. And that means they never have to discount because they don't keep much stock.

Ryan Peterson: You know, they only have 200 of each thing. Whereas if you go to like a lot of websites are like retail stores are always running a sale because they got too they bought too much stuff and they're dumping it. So the business model actually has some attractive features for it. And um I had we had started to build that service. We were offering it for a lot of we do still offer a similar service where we can ship from overseas and then we'll just inject it directly to the postal service or other last mile carriers. We stopped investing there because I was like this is going to die with the end of dimminimus but probably a mistake in hindsight. we're seeing like actually that model is still working. So

Tracy Alloway: actually that reminds me when you look back at gosh I can't believe it's only been like a year basically. But when you look back at the past year and your customers what was the biggest differentiating factor between those who handled the tariffs well and those who didn't? Was it just like size and their ability to squeeze out concessions from suppliers or was it I don't know data records and really good lawyers I guess. What did you see that made a particular company handle this better than others?

Ryan Peterson: Yeah, I mean you have to look probably within an industry because they're certain industries are just have sectoral advantages or disadvantages like it's hard to move electronics out of China. Um and then some of those industries were exempted from the tariffs. Actually, you know who did the best was the guys who went to uh managed to get a meeting at the White House and shake hands and convince them, you know, like Apple don't tax don't tariff the iPhone. Um, but that was a very privileged small number of people that had that kind of access. But smaller, all other things being equal, I think that like more entrepreneurial companies that could just move quickly and make good decisions and just like, all right, cool. We're going to set up manufacturing in Mexico or Latin America or some of these places and actually move relatively quickly. But it's not just speed. You got to make good decisions. You know, like people who moved to India in a hurry and then found out India got hit with a 50% tariff like not doing that great. So maybe some of it's just luck too. I mean, it's very hard to forecast how the

Jill Weisenthal: how this thing would did play out and what's going to happen next is kind of anybody's guess. So sometimes the best thing to do is nothing and just let things go stable. I met a couple of companies that said that was their plan and I was like that's kind of bold and I like it on some level. So okay, you're fairly optimistic that this is not going to take as long as perhaps some people think, but what is what are companies doing right now? walk us through the actual nuts and bolts of getting the refunds and what's happening right now and how the timeline works and what they have to do to actually get them and so forth. Walk us through that.

Ryan Peterson: It it's a bit of a technical thing, but you guys have a nerdy audience. So, I think the way that it'll work, it's there's first of all, there's some uncertainty of how the timing is going to work. If there are refunds at all, it's still not guaranteed, although I feel pretty high certainty. The way that it's likely to work is you're going to need to pull that ACE report that was I was talking about earlier. pull it from customs, calculate how much you're owed. You then are going to need to file, it's unclear if you'll need to file protest. Typically, the way that it works to get a refund is you go, you file a protest. You make your case to the government that, hey, we've got this mclassified. We are protesting and we and you'll get a refund. That's typically how it works. And that's how we're set up to go do that is go file these protests on your behalf to go challenge the AIPA protest and say, "Hey, you never should have paid me this." and I'll get a refund. So, we're putting that program in place right now for companies to go just make that easy, take away the paperwork.

Ryan Peterson: The piece that's a little bit more sophisticated is where people are selling these things in the secondary market that I mentioned earlier. So, there's at least three big banks that are out there. I don't know if they're big, but there are three groups that are out there, at least three. There's probably more

Jill Weisenthal: that are buying these things. And like I said, the market price went to 52%. So, there's a lot of negotiating right now of going, "All right, what's this time value of money? what's the what's your relative certainty of when and how this is going to play out. That's a market that I'm tracking very closely. Thus far, those guys have only transacted where company's refund is at least $10 million. One of the things I would like to be able to do is say, "Hey, we can pull a bunch of these guys together." Do any of the bank have any of the banks come to you and said like rather than trying to ga gather all of these you know tens of thousand however hundreds of thousands of companies did they just come to any of the freight brokers and say like assemble your crew and we like do a batch a batch sale.

Ryan Peterson: Yeah. Until last Friday we have we've talked to all of them. Until last Friday there was just a little too much uncertainty for us to put in the effort and like to build the thing. We built a calculator. that's why we were able to go live with the calculator, you know, the same day as the refunds went live because we'd been building that. Um, but as far as the processing, we didn't really invest in building that capability until Friday. We kicked off those, you know, like in earnest. So, that's what I'm hoping to be able to build in a hurry. Uh, I really like to be able to pull these things and I've talked to so many companies that said, "Hey, if you could get me 70%, I would 60% even, I would do it tomorrow." So that would be I think we could I think that we could create a lot of value there for everybody. I mean I think my estimate is much higher than 60%. So there's

Jill Weisenthal: if I value the thing differently than you are, there should be a win-win.

Tracy Alloway: Well, this is what I was going to ask. So just to be clear, like those claims on tariff refunds are trading at 50 or 60% at the moment, but we are expecting the full refund amount to actually come back, right? There's not plus legal fees, I think.

Ryan Peterson: Uh well I don't know about legal fees but plus interest you're supposed to get six I think 6% is the current rate on that 6% annualized. So yeah that when now we say we are expecting that's me and my team and some lawyers I've talked to but the brands probably aren't expecting it that high or else they wouldn't sell it for 60% or they need the money right now.

Jill Weisenthal: The justification for not getting the full refund if they're illegal like the totality is illegal right?

Ryan Peterson: Well this the full refund would come but in that case they would go to the person who bought it from you not you. So, it's just a time value of money and a uncertainty question that someone's willing to take a lower rate. But yeah, I think I personally I think if you sell it for 60%, you're probably leaving money on the table. Just wait a year. I mean, 40% for a year is a pretty good return. Should set up a little uh side hedge fund, a little side pocket.

Jill Weisenthal: Joe, I'll sell you my ter claims.

Tracy Alloway: All right. I I'll maybe we'll do a little a little trade here and write about it. Ryan Peterson, thank you so much. Uh great to catch up with you. I'm sure there will be more opportunities in the coming months and years ahead of all this, but thanks for coming back on.

Ryan Peterson: It was great to be here again. Thank you.

Jill Weisenthal: Thanks, Ryan.

Tracy Alloway: Tracy, we should do an episode on the the new delivery network that's actually built being built by the Chinese companies inside the United States. I didn't know that existed at all. I think that'd be fascinating. 20% is already as big as Amazon's logistical network. That's pretty wild.

Jill Weisenthal: Well, this is why, you know, I was asking a few questions about like how you actually classify items and things whenever you see this kind of sweeping rule change. I feel like you get a very immediate reaction from the people who are paying it and some of them get extremely creative if not illegal. Right. And it's fascinating to look at some of those solutions.

Tracy Alloway: Yeah. No, I like the I it's I mean it makes obvious sense. It's oh I sell this thing for $100. I'm going to set up a company in the US that I sell it to for a dollar, right?

Jill Weisenthal: And then the that company sells it for $100 to, you know, or tries to.

Tracy Alloway: That's business.

Jill Weisenthal: It's also illegal. It's business. But the fact that you see it's like that it shows up in the data, right? That there's like all that a foreign company can theoretically apply for the refund and etc. or could establish what was the importer of

Tracy Alloway: record that it can a foreign company can establish itself as the importer of record and that it shows up in the data like that shows how much uh creativity was underway since liberation day.

Jill Weisenthal: I mean just from a broader macro perspective and I know that wasn't the focus of this episode but maybe we'll do one at some point. It is going to be really fascinating to see what refund recipients actually do with that money, right? I feel like if you're a corporate analyst at the moment or if you're an investor, like it's going to tell you a lot about the direction of that particular company, what they do with that money.

Tracy Alloway: I think a big question is just going to be how many announced sales or something cuz like there's going to be some pressure to refund money to consumers, right? And it'll be interesting to see if any do some sort of nominal rebate of some sort. I mean, obviously they're not legally obliged to, but you know, I think a lot of people it's going to really annoy people if especially if there are categories where it's obvious that consumer prices went up because of the tariffs or if companies in some cases may have, oh, we're putting a tariff sir charge on you, right? And they might have spelled it out on some sort of bill.

Jill Weisenthal: Well, they probably did because they don't want to be seen to be raising prices.

Tracy Alloway: So, if you were the type of company that's like, look, we weren't raising we didn't want to raise prices. We just have to we so we're telling you that part of this $50 that you paid x amount is a tariff sir charge that we're applying. They better give you a refund otherwise that's going to be really annoying.

Jill Weisenthal: I guess that other it's like a de facto windfall for them.

Tracy Alloway: Well, you know who handled it pretty well?

Jill Weisenthal: Go on.

Tracy Alloway: All things considered at this moment in time. It seems like they handled it pretty well at Costco cuz I think they didn't they explicitly said they weren't going to pass on the tariff charges to customers. They were just going to like eat the loss. but also file suit against the Trump administration. Yeah.

Jill Weisenthal: Saying the tariffs are illegal. And so now, you know, they get the refunds. They don't have to like actually pay them back to customers, but they don't take the brand hit from not doing that because they never charge them anyway.

Tracy Alloway: They say they never charge them, but you know, in theory, they could have held a price steady and maybe in a in the alternate universe, the prices would have come down, right? So,

Jill Weisenthal: sure. We'll see. At least from I'm saying from a PR perspective, it was a good play.

Tracy Alloway: Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Jill Weisenthal: I'm only saying that because I'm a big fan of the um giant Spanish hams that you can get at at Costco,

Tracy Alloway: which were presumably tiff.

Jill Weisenthal: I I guess, but I This is the first year I ever bought a Costco ham, so I can't tell you.

Tracy Alloway: It was so good. I can't tell you what it was the year before if it actually went up. But

Jill Weisenthal: can I tell if a little life hack for the people that are still listening to the very end of the conversation? If you ever like show up at a party and you bring a Spanish ham, you people will just love you. And like, you know, they're a couple hundred dollars or whatever, but there's a lot of food in the Spanish ham. And if you're the guy who shows up at a party with a big Spanish ham on the whole on the spit or whatever it is, like that, you're be the life of the party. It is a very strong move. A friend of mine did that and everyone loved him.

Tracy Alloway: I think that's an excellent idea. I bought my husband one for Christmas and I will say I think it lasted us like a good three and we ate a lot of hats. You just leave it out there, right? Like you just Yeah, there's They preserve very well.

Jill Weisenthal: Some cheese and ham for dinner for like 3 weeks.

Tracy Alloway: You just keep carving at it. Yeah, it's Yeah, it actually is.

Jill Weisenthal: All right, shall we leave it there?

Tracy Alloway: Let's leave it there.

Jill Weisenthal: Okay, this has been another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast. I'm Tracy Aloway. You can follow me at Tracy

Tracy Alloway: and I'm Joe Weisenthal. You can follow me at the stalwart. Follow our guest Ryan Peterson. He's at typesfast. Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Armen. Dash o Bennett at Dashbot and Kale Brooks at Kalebrooks. And for more OddLots content, go to bloomberg.com/odlotss.

Tracy Alloway: We have a daily newsletter and all of our episodes. And you can chat about all of these things 247 in our Discord, discord.gg/odlots.

Jill Weisenthal: And if you enjoy OddLots, if you like it when we talk about Spanish hams and the tariffs, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely adree. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcast and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.