Welcome to Special Rates

Welcome to my new space for tariff information and plain language explanations of the Trump tariffs and everything else tariff related from a human expert.

Up until the end of 2025, I worked for the United States International Trade Commission, in the office that maintained the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. One of my roles as a senior attorney advisor was to draft the legal language for new tariffs.

In plain terms, we would see a tweet (or a truth, I guess) and then we would get together with our counterparts at the Department of Commerce and CBP to check that it was a real thing that was happening. And then we would translate that tweet into a tariff that could be signed and implemented.

This is the source of my insight. I worked with these things every day and part of that work was answering questions from the public. Now that I have left the Commission, I want to make sure there is a place that helps regular people understand these seemingly never ending tariffs. I want you to understand because I don't want you to pay a penny more than you have to.

So sign up to get access to explainers of the steel/aluminum tariffs and the lumber tariffs and the recently terminated IEEPA tariffs. Sign up to understand what is coming down the pike. Sign up to hear about how you or business can impact and shape new tariffs and classifications that impact your imports.

All from a human and not some unaccountable, mistake-making AI.

While I get this up and running, if you have any tariff questions or need some tariff assistance, send me an email at specialrates@proton.me.