Hey everyone, new to the forum. A lot of posts saying various things about who's affected by what. I'm going to summarise the situation so everyone is on the same page.
Tariffs are imposed on goods based on country of manufacture. So whilst Tayda is in Thailand, presumably a good chunk of their inventory is made in China. So going forward, it may become a case of carefully checking your order to ensure that you haven't picked anything produced in China. Remember that none of this matters for orders under $800 until May 2nd, when the de minimis exemption, for China & HK specifically, is ended.
As a motivating example, if you have a $100 order, but accidentally picked $0.50 worth of resistors that were made in China, then after May 2nd, that $0.50 is liable for import duties and tariffs upon entry into the US. The duties/tariffs themselves would total very little - for simplicity lets say they come to another $0.50. So your current order total is $100.50.
But because Tayda ships with UPS, UPS will charge a flat rate processing fee, which anecdotally is around $20-30. As far as I'm aware there's no courier that won't charge this fee (although the amount will vary slightly between them), except potentially USPS? Others may have better info.
So even though you're only liable for $0.50 worth of actual duties/tariffs, the fact that any part of your order had to be tariffed has incurred the massive (relative to total order) processing fee. The larger the order, the more this fee is amortized across the entire order value. I don't know this for certain, but it's definitely possible a $5000 order also incurs a $30 fee, at which point the $30 is a small fraction of the total order value rather than ~30%. Some on this forum may be able to speak to whether the processing fee on large order values is bigger or not.
Anyone who was making orders >$800 already will only see a difference in the import fees owed - they were already above the de minimis threshold anyway and so they were already incurring the processing fee and paying (lesser) duties/tariffs. That's why removal of de minimis only really affects the hobbyists or very nascent businesses; many businesses were already ordering enough to breach the threshold.
So if you're able to order all non-Chinese goods from Tayda (or else if Tayda lies about country of manufacture) going forward, you will, for the time being, be able to take advantage of de minimis, which will still be in place for everywhere except China & HK after May 2nd. However, Trump has said he intends to remove de minimis entirely - that is, once "systems are in place", you will not be able to import anything at all without incurring duties (even if tariffs are reduced to 0%).
As a final note, there are some things that were affordable to hobbyists only really by virtue of specific Chinese manufacturers. Thinking specifically of prototype-quantity custom PCBs a la JLCPCB or PCBWay. The removal of de minimis will mean that what might've been a ~$20 (inclusive of shipping) order for 5 PCBs will now become a ~$60 order, because of processing fees. It might begin to make OSH Park competitive, but OSH Park is around $8/pc min cost and PCBWay/JLCPCB could be as low as $1/pc, so even with fees they might be cheaper, just much more expensive than previously. It's a real shame.
I _don't_ know whether using the cheap shipping option (Global Standard/Direct Shipping) on JLC/PCBWay means they hand over to USPS at the border. If it does, you might be able to avoid the processing fees from a courier service, but remember, removal of de minimis for China means you still have to pay duties/tariffs, which soon might be more than 100% (given the rhetoric from the administration).
Conclusion
Tariffs are imposed on country of manufacture. De minimis for China & HK ends May 2 and may affect orders even though you made them with a non-Chinese supplier, because so much is manufactured in China. Import fees for a package are evaluated at the point it reaches the border, so even if you _order_ before May 2nd, if your package arrives at the border on or after that date, you'll have to pay fees. Up until May 2nd, if your order is less than $800, you shouldn't have to pay any fees.
The administration has expressed intent to remove de minimis for all countries. So even though it might be possible to order from Tayda without incurring fees after May 2nd, a few months from now that may not be the case.
