Businesses have sharply increased shipments of imported goods into duty-free “foreign trade zones” as they make use of a Great Depression-era policy to get around US President Donald Trump’s erratic trade tariffs.
Warehouse operators said customers had been rushing to stock more goods inside approved facilities that temporarily exempt businesses from paying tariffs, under laws originally introduced to mitigate the fallout from US protectionist policies in the 1930s.
Organisations overseeing foreign trade zones have reported that interest is between two and four times higher since Trump returned to the White House in January, said Jeffrey Tafel, president of the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones (NAFTZ).