The U.S. tariff policy will undergo major adjustments in 2026. This change is like a blockbuster, causing an uproar in the global foreign trade market.
The core implementation node of the New Deal is locked on June 8, 2026. The preferential tax rate is only for a temporary period and is valid until December 31, 2027. The original high tariff provisions will be fully reset in 2028, which directly cuts off the illusion of foreign trade companies relying on long-term low tariffs to lock in orders.
For tractors, combine harvesters and other complete sets of agricultural machinery and equipment, residential supporting HVAC adjustment machines and spare parts, which originally adhered to the 25% import tariff, the officially approved tax rate has been reduced to 15%.
Bulldozers, forklifts and other mobile industrial machinery that meet the raw material review conditions are also subject to the same preferential tax rates.
This ten-percent tax rate gap has given manufacturing factories that are deeply involved in North American agricultural machinery exports a real cost dividend.
Public data from leading domestic aluminum profile companies show that order inquiries for 5052 and 6061 series aluminum alloy plates, which are mainly used for agricultural machinery bodies and fuel tanks, have increased by 20% month-on-month in a short period of time. American domestic complete machine purchasers have taken advantage of the tariff reduction to expand their share of overseas raw material procurement.
The tariff details of the trade agreement partner countries have set out new pricing standards.
Imported products with original agreed tax rates lower than 15% will have the tax difference uniformly made up to 15%, and categories with existing tax rates exceeding the 15% threshold will no longer be subject to additional taxes.
This set of tax subsidy rules breaks the inherent pattern of some small countries relying on preferential tariffs to seize the North American market, ushering in a reshuffle of the global pricing system for similar industrial products.
The identification standards for domestic metal raw materials in the United States have also ushered in key changes.
Previously, the entry threshold for derivatives that required 95% of U.S.-produced aluminum, steel, and copper materials was lowered to 85%. The proportion of raw materials was calculated based on the total weight of the product. Overseas manufacturers purchasing some domestically smelted metals in the United States can achieve an ultra-low preferential tariff of 10%. The United States leveraged the global supply chain to increase the purchase of local minerals and helped the domestic steel, aluminum, and copper smelting industry digest excess production capacity.
However, the signal of tightening supervision is hidden in the newly added tax catalog.
Aluminum lithographic printing plates and storage steel shelves have been officially included in the scope of metal derivatives tariff supervision. The US Customs has used this to block the gray operation path that relied on splitting product structures to avoid tariffs in the past.
A large number of foreign trade manufacturers mainly engaged in the export of printed aluminum plates are facing the pressure of soaring costs, and the export orders of leading aluminum companies in this category have shown obvious signs of contraction.
The structural fragmentation of cross-border industries is visible to the naked eye.
Agricultural machinery and HVAC sellers have taken advantage of tax cuts to reduce import costs, and their quotations have become more competitive. Small and medium-sized sellers are busy connecting with overseas customers to finalize batch orders for the third quarter.
However, the refinement of tariff details for all categories has brought stringent raw material traceability reviews, and the compliance costs of product metal content traceability and origin data declaration have continued to rise.
A large number of small and medium-sized cross-border merchants who rely on extensive customs declaration and low-cost direct mail to go overseas have fallen into operational bottlenecks. The single direct logistics model cannot withstand the risks of customs clearance delays and tax changes caused by frequent policy changes.
A number of cross-border logistics industry survey data confirm the decisive role of supply chain layout.
Sellers of medium and large items who have prepared overseas warehouses in the United States in advance rely on pre-stocking at warehousing outlets across the eastern and western United States to split single customs clearance shipments to avoid the risk of random inspections under new regulations. The 24-hour standardized warehousing service greatly shortens the last-mile delivery time, and the order fulfillment stability is far superior to that of pure direct mail counterparts.
The policy memorandum issued by the White House states that this round of tariff adjustment is anchored on two major goals. On the domestic side, it will alleviate inflationary pressure to appease voters in agricultural states in the Midwest and solidify the voter base for the mid-term elections. On the international side, it will use tiered tax rates to guide global manufacturing to bind domestic metal resources in the United States and steadily promote the recovery of the entire local industrial chain.
