18 Tariff Strategies Working Right Now

You're probably hearing a lot of tariff advice right now. Move to Mexico. Use a bonded warehouse. File for duty drawback. And you probably sort of know what some of it means... but not really.

Below is a breakdown of 18 strategies that are actually working, drawn from interviews with 10+ tariff and trade experts over the past three months.

If you already know all this, this post isn't for you. For everyone else, keep it handy next time you need to explain the options to leadership.

Thanks to Aaron Alpeter, Adam Dambrov, Adam Reisfield, Andy Smith, Evan De Wolfe, Jesse Mitchell, Parker Burr, Stephen Miller, Thomas Taggart, and Yan Sim for sharing their insights for this piece.

How to Use This Guide

The 18 strategies fall into five categories:

1. Warehousing & Inventory Positioning — Where you hold inventory and when you pay duties

2. Sourcing & Manufacturing — Where your products get made

3. Customs & Classification — How your products are categorized and valued

4. Transaction Structure — How purchases flow between entities

5. Process & Compliance — Documentation and recovery mechanisms

Most operators will stack strategies across categories. 

Category 1: Warehousing & Inventory Positioning

These strategies don't change your product or your sourcing. They change where you hold inventory and when you pay duties.

Strategy 1: Bonded Warehouses

The core idea is simple: you're betting that tariffs will drop.

When you move goods into a bonded warehouse, you don't pay duties until you pull them out. The key detail: you pay the tariff rate on the day of withdrawal, not the day of entry.

Daniel Lee from Dimerco explains the math: "If you're entering the US from China at 145%, you bring it to the bonded warehouse first. Wait for the new tariff. Maybe by the time you're coming out, tariffs go down to 45%. Then you use 45% to clear."

You can hold inventory for up to five years. If tariffs never drop? You can re-export to another country and never pay US duties at all.

The catch: Everyone figured this out at the same time.

Yan from Operating Crew has been fielding calls nonstop: "Nobody ever talks about bonded warehouses before the tariffs. And once tariffs go down, they'll go into oblivion again. So they know this is their window to make money. They're charging $60-100 per pallet AND saying you need to guarantee a fixed period of time."

Evan DeWolfe from Dimerco added: "The cram to find bonded warehouses is really like finding a needle in a haystack."

Works when: You have slower-moving inventory, you believe tariffs will drop in 6-18 months, or you have realistic re-export options. The math works when tariff savings exceed storage costs plus the guaranteed minimum commitment.

Doesn't work when: Fast-turning inventory where storage costs compound quickly, or if you need fulfillment flexibility.

👉️ Here’s CBPs official guide to bonded warehouses.

Strategy 2: Foreign Trade Zones (FTZ)

FTZs are bonded warehouses with superpowers. You can actually do things to your inventory: relabel, repackage, assemble, consolidate. All before paying a cent in duties.

But here's what most people miss: the real value often isn't duty deferral at all. It's consolidation.

Andy from Source Logistics runs an FTZ in Laredo, Texas for a major furniture retailer. The retailer manufactures across multiple factories in Mexico. Andy's FTZ serves as a consolidation point where all the manufacturers ship, and his team builds optimized distribution loads for 30+ DCs across the US.

"They're getting two benefits, not just FTZ. Tariff deferment AND supply chain throughput improvement. They improve their cycle time, their overall cost structure."

But the biggest win? Geography. "15-20% of their volume goes to Canada. Everything that goes to Canada is deferred. They don't pay any US tax because it never gets released into the US. It goes into Canada and pays whatever tariffs Canada has with Mexico."

That's the real unlock. If any portion of your imports ultimately heads to Canada, an FTZ lets that portion skip US duties entirely.

The catch: FTZs are hard to get and harder to run.

The zone itself is controlled by the local government. You have to be in a designated area to even apply. Setup takes six months typically, three months if you're lucky. And compliance is intense.

Andy doesn't sugarcoat it: "Every employee that does anything with this retailer has to be background checked and certified with CBP. We have detailed standard operating procedures. CBP audits us. If you don't do it right, you don't get the tariff benefit. You get penalized."

There's another catch that's counterintuitive. Yan from Operating Crew points out that FTZs lock in your tariff rate at entry, not withdrawal. "In our tariff environment today with super high tariffs, that's just not a tool we would tap." If you're betting on rates dropping, an FTZ works against you.

Works when: High volume, multiple suppliers to consolidate, products needing manipulation before sale, or a portion of shipments heading to Canada. You need scale to justify the setup and compliance overhead.

Doesn't work when: Low volume, simple storage needs, or if you're betting on tariff reductions. For pure storage plays, bonded is simpler. For tariff-drop bets, bonded lets you pay the rate when you withdraw.

👉️ How FTZs work, from the ITA:

Strategy 3: Cross-Border Storage (Canada/Mexico)

This is the strategy that's saving businesses right now. Not theoretically. Actually saving them.

Jesse Mitchell from SFI shared a case study that stopped me mid-interview. A hood fan company (large, bulky products) shifted their strategy to store inventory in Canada and fulfill into the US from there.

"They're saving over $100,000 in tariff per container. They do over 100 containers a year. They are extremely happy and fortunate that they pivoted to Canada when they did because it's now saved their business in many respects."

Do the math. That's eight figures in annual tariff savings.

Here's how it works. When you own inventory on both sides of the border (your Canadian warehouse and your US warehouse or 3PL), you get to invoice yourself. That invoice determines the value customs uses to calculate duties.

Aaron Alpeter from Izba breaks it down: "You're shipping from your Canadian possession to your US possession. The key thing is the invoice. If the invoice says this is valued at $15, you pay tariffs on $15. You can't send an invoice to a customer and say this is worth $15 but charge them $100. The customer won't accept that. But you can tell yourself it's $15 and resell to your customer for $100."

So instead of paying 35% tariff on a $100 retail item ($35), you pay 35% on your $15 cost ($5.25). Massive difference.

The setup is straightforward. Yan from Operating Crew walks clients through it: 

• Apply for NRI (Non-Resident Importer) status

• Set up a GST account with the Canadian government

• Then ship containers to Canada, store in a Canadian 3PL, and withdraw inventory as needed

The catch: You need enough scale and margin to split your supply chain.

Jesse is direct about who this works for: "I don't think this is a good strategy for a very small brand just starting out. You need to be a well-developed company with experience in international supply chains."

Yan adds the math: "If you're doing 2,000 orders per month, it doesn't make sense to split into two locations. Maybe you save $2-3K a year. Not worth the headache of inventory balancing."

And you're adding transit time. Ontario to East Coast US is one day. But if you're competing on same-day or next-day delivery, that extra day matters.

Works when: Higher-value products where margins can absorb the extra logistics complexity. Brands that can also tap the Canadian market directly (that's 7% of North American ecommerce right there). East Coast fulfillment especially, where Ontario is essentially "North New York." Products where one to two day transit time is acceptable.

Doesn't work when: Ultra-fast delivery requirements, very low-value products where the economics don't pencil, or if you're running thousands of SKUs and can't handle inventory balancing across two countries.

One bonus worth noting: Jesse's hood fan client started this strategy five years ago, before the current tariff chaos, because it made operational sense. The tariff savings are gravy on top of a sound supply chain decision.

Strategy 4: In-Country Fulfillment (International Markets)

Sometimes the best tariff strategy is to stop fighting US tariffs altogether.

If you're selling internationally (or could be), why import everything to the US first? Ship directly to the UK, EU, Australia, or Canada. Fulfill locally. Never touch US customs at all.

Tom from Passport frames it simply: "The biggest markets are Canada, UK, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand. Outside of those five, it's really just long tail rest of the world."

If US tariffs are destroying your margins on a product, and that product sells in London and Sydney, move inventory there directly. Local fulfillment improves customer experience (faster shipping, no surprise duties at delivery) while eliminating your US tariff problem entirely.

Yan from Operating Crew is seeing this trend accelerate: "All of the stuff happening in the US with tariffs is driving brands to explore markets outside the US. We have brands exploring the UK, Australia, other English-speaking markets. Diversifying away from the US is prudent. Expands your customer base."

The catch: You need a real international business to make this work.

This isn't a tariff hack. It's a market expansion strategy that happens to have tariff benefits. You need actual demand in these markets, the operational capacity to manage international inventory, and willingness to handle local compliance (VAT registration in UK/EU, different product regulations, etc.).

Tom flags the operational constraint: "If you can manage it with your SKU count, you don't have hundreds of thousands of different SKUs and you're not changing SKUs every two weeks, then looking at moving inventory directly to those key markets makes sense."

Works when: You already have international customers, your products have global appeal, and your SKU count is manageable. Budget one to three months per market for compliance setup.

Doesn't work when: You're US-only with no international traction, your products are US-specific, or your catalog changes constantly. Don't force international expansion just to avoid tariffs.

Category 2: Sourcing & Manufacturing

These strategies change where your products get made. They're harder and slower than warehousing plays, but the savings are structural, not temporary.

Strategy 5: China Plus One (Maintain + Diversify)

The instinct when tariffs spike is to abandon China entirely. Find a new factory in Vietnam. Move everything. Cut ties.

This is usually a mistake.

Stephen Miller from Sourcify has watched brands make this error repeatedly: "We get a lot of people that are ready to jump ship. Although we would love to win their business and move them out of China, we don't want them to burn that bridge."

Why? Because the rules keep changing.

"This week, we may see Chinese tariffs drop down. There's word they might even recall some of the Section 301 tariffs. China could become a very competitive place again. If you burn that bridge, it's hard to get back in there."

The smarter play is China Plus One. Keep your Chinese supplier for international orders (no US tariffs on goods shipped to Australia or Europe) and for the potential that US-China rates normalize. Add a second supplier in a lower-tariff country for US-bound goods.

Here's the fastest way to execute this: ask your Chinese factory if their parent company has facilities elsewhere.

Stephen: "Your first question should be: does your parent company also have facilities in other countries? A lot of times we end up with suppliers that have dual presence in Vietnam and China, or Thailand and China. For $300, they'll ship the mold to the other factory. Same engineering team, same parent company. Just manufacturing executed in a different country."

Same quality. Same relationship. Different country of origin on the customs form.

The catch: Not every product can move, and not every factory has dual presence.

Stephen estimates 30-40% of clients who come to Sourcify still find China is the only cost-effective option for their specific product. And finding a truly new factory (not just a sister facility) takes two to three months of vetting, sampling, and relationship building.

"The best factories have the worst SEO. You can't just look them up. You have to meet them in person or get referred to them."

Works when: You have a Chinese supplier worth keeping, your products can be manufactured elsewhere, and you're willing to manage relationships in two countries. The dual-presence approach (same parent company, different country) is the fastest path.

Doesn't work when: Your product is genuinely China-specific (certain materials, certain expertise), you don't have the bandwidth to manage multiple suppliers, or your volumes are too low to interest a second factory.