> 25-pound sandbag into the US from Canada.

It's not the point, but why were you doing this? Surely internationally shipping a sack of sand is more painful than getting a local one?

This could just be across the border.

> just be across the border.

It was interesting to see shops in the border towns of south & south east Switzerland buying & selling products from Italy, a relatively cheaper market.

I mean, when I was young we lived in Poland right next to the border with Slovakia and we'd drive over once a week for groceries and to buy fuel because it was just so much cheaper over there. Nowadays it's the reverse since they got the Euro - most Polish shops near the border cater to Slovakian shoppers and even accept Euro for payment.

> even accept Euro for payment.

Pre Brexit, I encounter a shop that did this in London and was surprised.

Having just been over there again, it's not hard to be entirely cashless, so the convenience isn’t missed.

Italians seem to like dealing in cash, with various taxis and hotels being cheaper if you pay cash. I guess that means it’s off the books?

American here. My experience is that the US dollar seems to be accepted in tons of stores in countries all over in the Americas Europe and Asia. Trade is trade it seems.

Huh? In what world was the tariff on sand 2000%?

It wasn't the tariff. UPS has been tacking on a ridiculously high paperwork fee for the service of processing tariff payments. Other shipping companies have also had fees, but UPS is the main one that's made it exorbitant and disproportionately higher than the tariff itself.

I'm thinking the delivery agents such as UPS, Fedex, USPS now need to sue the United States so they can pay back all the recipients the fees they charged, plus interest.

There are going to be a raft of class action suits based on this.

As one of my lawyers once said, the only winners here are the lawyers.

“ As one of my lawyers once said, the only winners here are the lawyers.”

Congress is full of lawyers do it’s pretty natural that they make rules that favor lawyers.

I suspect that my recent experience confirms this. Our daughter shipped two suitcases home from the UK, paying some local company for "door-to-door" delivery. They contracted with UPS who demanded an additional $32 when the first bag showed up. For the second she paid the same fee online so they wouldn't require a check at the door.