(Credit: Wyze)
Need a real-world example of how Trump's tariffs are hitting the electronics industry? Wyze says it paid $255,000 with import fees to ship just $167,000 worth of product.
On Wednesday, Wyze posted a screenshot of a shipment receipt. "Just got our first tariff bill. We imported $167k of floodlights and then paid $255k in tariffs. That’s more than any of our founders were paid last year,” the Seattle-based company tweeted.
Although Wyze didn't break down how the import fee was calculated, $255,000 suggests the company is paying Trump’s 145% tariffs on Chinese imports. Last month, Trump imposed an extra 125% tariff on Chinese imports on top of 20% fees announced earlier this year.
To avoid these hefty tariffs in the future, Wyze says it's "been working on moving manufacturing out of China for over a year now, but those efforts have been…accelerated. We’ll probably be out in 60 days.” This includes migrating its factories to Vietnam and Malaysia, where Trump’s "reciprocal tariffs" have been paused for 90 days.
Wyze’s tweets have drawn backlash from some users who fault the company for not sourcing its products from US factories. “Tariffs are clearly working. Your first mistake was manufacturing in China,” said one X user. Others indicate they plan on boycotting Wyze products.
Wyze was not having it, telling critics it relies on suppliers in Asia, “mostly because it's way less expensive to do so and allows us to sell for lower prices. Also, I hope you don't use an iphone, use a computer, wear Nikes, or buy Legos cause if you do I have bad news for you..."
Wyze adds that it was forced to import the Chinese-assembled floodlights and pay the $255,000 import fees due to a prior commitment with a retailer.
"We fully committed this inventory to a retailer in February, and it has to get to them in May for a promo they are running in June. I’m sure they will be totally fine when we call and tell them it won’t get there until 2028 and it now costs $529 because we didn’t dabble in idiocy," it tweeted.
Wyze has suspended shipments to the US on other shipments to avoid high tariffs. But in the long term, the company might need to raise prices. “We're going to wait to see what happens in the next few weeks,” the vendor told one user who asked about potential price hikes.