TradeEdge

By Jason Kim · Branch Manager · 15 years in freight forwarding · Los Angeles · Frankfurt · Chicago Published on TradeEdge | Practical freight forwarding, customs, and import/export guidance written from 15 years of real logistics operations. In Fiscal Year 2025, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recovered $26 billion in additional duty from entry summary reviews — the audits CBP conducts to confirm imported goods were correctly classified and valued. The year before, that number was $667.5 million . That is a 39× jump in twelve months . If you import into the United States and have not changed the way you classify your products, you are walking into the most aggressive customs enforcement environment in modern American trade history armed with a 10-digit code that you probably guessed. This post is the antidote. Why I'm writing this now There are roughly 11,000 licensed customs brokers in the United States. There are nearly 25,000 freight forwarders. There ar...

On April 9, 2025, the effective tariff rate on most Chinese goods imported into the United States briefly reached 145 percent. Not 14.5 percent. One hundred and forty-five percent. To put that number in context: a shipment of consumer electronics with a $100,000 customs value would have generated $145,000 in combined duties — more than the goods themselves were worth. In a single executive order, the economics of sourcing from China did not change. They inverted. I have been managing freight operations across Los Angeles, Frankfurt, and Chicago for fifteen years. In that time I have lived through the Section 301 tariff escalation of 2018 and 2019, the COVID-era supply chain chaos of 2020 and 2021, and the 2025 tariff cycle that made all of it look orderly by comparison. Nothing I have witnessed across my entire career matches the speed and scale of what happened to importers between April and December of 2025. This guide explains exactly what happened, what the tariff landscape loo...

If you have ever typed "customs broker vs freight forwarder" into Google at 11 PM the night before a shipment arrives, you are not alone. I have been in freight forwarding for fifteen years — working out of Los Angeles, Frankfurt, and now Chicago. In that time I have coordinated thousands of international shipments, working side by side with licensed customs brokers on every single one of them. Not as a broker myself — I am not licensed — but as the freight forwarding professional responsible for making sure everything around the broker's work actually moved. And the most expensive confusion I have witnessed in this industry is not about freight rates, Incoterms, or demurrage. It is about this one question: what exactly is the difference between a customs broker and a freight forwarder, and which one do you actually need? The answer matters more than most importers realize. Get it wrong and you could be hiring someone who cannot legally do what you need, overpaying for...

By Jason Kim  ·  Branch Manager  ·  15 years in freight forwarding  ·  Los Angeles · Frankfurt · Chicago Demurrage and detention are two of the most common charges that surprise importers after a container arrives. When I worked with shipments moving through Los Angeles and Long Beach, I saw many importers misunderstand one important point: vessel arrival does not mean the container is ready for delivery. Customs release, freight release, terminal availability, delivery order handling, truck appointment, warehouse receiving, and empty return all have to line up. If one step is delayed, the cargo may sit at the terminal too long, or the empty container may be returned late. That is when demurrage and detention charges begin. This guide explains the difference between demurrage and detention, why these charges happen, and what importers should check before the container arrives. Demurrage vs. Detention: Two Differen...