Tariffs are easy to announce, but hard to track

Announcing tariffs is easy. Implementing them at the border? That’s a whole different ball game.

Customs runs all of this through their Automated Commercial Environment, better known as ACE. It’s their system for processing imports, flagging issues, applying duties, and pushing out updates. It sounds clean on paper, but when new tariffs get added, especially when they’re messy and product-specific like aluminum derivatives, it takes more than just flipping a switch.