I've also been following this issue closely and I believe you've correctly described the situation, not only with individual purchases from Chinese vendors, but also for any trade with the Peoples Republic of China. I'm afraid the best answer anybody can give is that you'll know what the import tax is when US Customs tells you. Until then, it's a moving target dictated purely by the President's whim without any logical basis whatsoever. If you wonder about the highly volatile fluctuations in the value of your retirement savings, this is why, and hold on to your seat, because the "pig in the python" of these hugely increased tariff taxes is about finished travelling through the python's digestive system and American consumers are standing right in the python's "line of fire." (The President tells us it's just wonderful that the government is raking in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariff taxes, but a lot of folks don't seem to understand that the American consumers are paying those taxes, not the exporting foreign countries.)
As of yesterday (or the day before,) the basic tariff tax on Chinese imports (with some exceptions which i don't believe include ship model kits) is now 55%. Theoretically, the cost of your $100 Chinese kit "before tax" was increased to $155.00 "including tax" by a unilateral Presidential executive order. As you have already stated in your question, the "basic" tariff is not evenan accurate reflection of the tax which may be actually charged. Tariffs on Chinese goods shipped to individuals in the US are imposed using the "Harmonized Tariff Schedule ("HTS,") which classifies goods and determines the applicable duty rates. The customs value, which includes the cost of the goods, shipping, and insurance, is used to calculate the import tax due. The US International Trade Commission classifies products and issues codes for a specific product which determine the actual tax imposed.
As you've noted, there are huge upward variations in the actual tariff taxes actually imposed on Chinese products. This is because of the effect of "stacking tariffs," which you've already noted in your posts. "Stacked tariffs" will increase the total import tax where they apply. Because of this, the cost of Chinese goods across the board to American consumers will be increasing substantially in the very near future, months, if not weeks, because the tariffs which were deferred repeatedly, again by executive order alone, are now finally fully in effect. It's a question for the trade economists to answer, but from where I sit, I don't think Americans are going to be able to afford to buy a whole lot of things we've become accustomed to buying before these tariff tax increases were charged and, in many instances, we aren't going to find substitutes accessible, either, because after these taxes there just isn't "enough meat left on the bone" to make it worth anybody's while to manufacture and sell them.
If tariff taxes price foreign model kits out of the American market, as it seems they will certainly do, even Ray Charles could see that this isn't going to "stimulate American manufacturing" of ship model kits at all. It's just going to give the American ship model kit manufacturers the opportunity to raise prices. From the size of the sale price discounts
on American model kits, it's apparent that the manufacturers aren't selling materials. The cost of materials and production must be quite low to accommodate the level of sale discounting we see without the manufacturers taking large losses and going out of business. In other words, even without looking at their books, we can see that there's a very high markup between the cost of production and the MSRP. This means they are selling the "sizzle" and not the "steak." Thus, in a free market, they will increase prices to a level the market will bear. Less price competition in the marketplace means the market will bear higher prices. The cost of kits is going up and those who want to build kits will pay that increase. Rest assured the kit manufacturers' "bean counters" have already calculated with scientific accuracy at exactly what price point enough people will quit ship modeling because it's too expensive and the price they can get is the price they will charge.
Every cloud has a silver lining, though. Perhaps the developments we are now experiencing may, in the end, elevate ship model building to the level of artistic esteem and respect it formerly held and truly deserves when the only alternative for those who continue to pursue it will be building models from scratch.
