If you're buying from China, you'll be paying the Trump Sales Tax. And if you try to ship directly from China yourself, you'll pay administrative fees to whoeve

If you're buying from China, you'll be paying the Trump Sales Tax. And if you try to ship directly from China yourself, you'll pay administrative fees to whoever handles the actual tax payment for you. For a few moments in early February before the administration began backtracking, DHL was charging a $32 fee for each shipment, even for a $1 trinket, and the other shippers (Cainao etc) were rapidly gearing up to do the same. The de minimis exemption for low-value goods was also briefly suspended, which is why the fees were so out of whack, and also why USPS momentarily stopped accepting shipments from China and Hong Kong: they didn't have the infrastructure to suddenly deal with fees on huge volumes of packages. Buying your Chinese stuff through Mouser or Digikey or Arrow will spread that administrative fee across a whole shipping container of components. You'll still be paying the tax, but the administrative costs will be amortized.