Navigating Tariff Complexity between USA and China
Written by Jim GREGOR
VP Interlog North America
Using Freight Audit Insight to Navigate Tariff Complexity
For today’s importers, landed cost forecasting has become a moving target. A shipment that clears under a manageable duty rate in June might arrive with a different cost in July. These swings can erase margin overnight and force supply chain into constant damage control. Freight Audit professionals experience the turbulence firsthand. Every shipment record, every customs line, and every charge tells a story about how trade policy and transportation dynamics shape cost. When those details are analyzed together, they offer a clearer picture than any stand-alone system can provide. For example, as US – China trade parameters co to shift in 2026, companies need a grounded understanding of how these pressures shape their cost structure. Systems and technology can collect the data, but people provide the analysis that turns data into solutions.
The Ongoing Challenge of US – China Duties
Tariffs between the United States and China have changed repeatedly in recent years, and the pattern shows no signs of stabilizing. Even minor changes in the tariff schedule can have major effects when applied across thousands of units or dozens of product categories. The difficulty is compounded by the pace of change. Many organizations discover the impact of a new duty rate only after the goods have already moved, leaving little time to adjust pricing or communicate budget updates internally. The uncertainty is what frustrates planning the most. Import teams often find themselves trying to reconcile freight costs from transportation platforms, customs entries from brokers, and supplier terms from spreadsheets or ERP systems. Because these tools were not originally built to interact, it becomes difficult to understand how duties and freight combine to influence the full landed cost. Freight Audit helps resolve this challenge by consolidating the shipment details, carrier charges, and duty information into one view. When these pieces are joined, questions that once required hours of manual comparison can be answered in minutes.
The Expanding Role of Freight Audit
Freight Audit was once defined by its original purpose, verifying freight invoices and recovering overcharges. That responsibility still matters, but the function has matured into something much more strategic. Modern audit processes capture granular shipment detail, transportation behavior, carrier performance, and accessorial trends. Layering customs records and tariff classifications onto that data gives companies a deeply textured understanding of how logistics decisions and trade policy intersect. Because the audit process maintains years of historical detail, it offers a long-term view of cost movement. Organizations can see how certain goods behave under different duty regimes, which suppliers drive volatility, or which lanes repeatedly show discrepancies. These insights enable companies to anticipate potential cost pressure rather than waiting until the issue appears on an invoice or in a margin report.
From Raw Data to Tariff Awareness
Using audit intelligence to guide tariff strategy depends on linking systems that were never originally designed to work together. Freight details, customs entries, supplier records, and tariff codes are often maintained in separate platforms. Integrating them creates a continuous understanding of how costs behave. Once combined, the information becomes easier to analyze. Teams can more easily identify where landed cost shifts originate. As companies improve their ability to interpret these patterns, they move from simply reviewing invoices to actively managing tariff exposure. Collaboration across departments is essential. Freight Audit can bring insights to light, but logistics, procurement, compliance, and finance must coordinate to act on them. When they share one data foundation, they respond faster and with a clearer understanding of the trade-offs involved.
A Real-World Example
A U.S. importer recently noticed an unexplained increase in landed cost on several China-origin products. Freight rates had remained stable, so the finance team assumed the issue was a carrier billing problem. After reviewing the Freight Audit data alongside customs records, the real cause became clear. A few key products had been reclassified under a new tariff code, triggering higher duties that blended into total shipment costs.
Once identified, the company appealed the reclassification and adjusted supplier agreements to recover costs. The discovery led to several million dollars in savings and improved forecasting accuracy. Without the Freight Audit data connecting the dots, the issue could have gone unnoticed for months.
A Second Scenario Highlighting the Human Factor
Another company importing electronic components experienced recurring fluctuations in landed cost that seemed to track with changes in routing. The data alone showed the variance, but it took a Freight Audit analyst to notice the pattern: shipments routed through certain ports experienced different inspection practices that affected the timing and classification of goods. The issue was not the tariff schedule itself but the way the entries were being processed in specific locations. This insight allowed the importer to shift routing, clarify documentation requirements, and negotiate new terms with suppliers to better manage the risk. It is a reminder that even with sophisticated systems, human interpretation remains essential.
Why 2026 Will Be a Turning Point
The coming year is expected to introduce additional shifts in US – China policy, especially involving technology-related goods, automotive components, industrial materials, and certain consumer products. Companies that wait for these changes to be finalized often find themselves reacting too late. Freight Audit intelligence allows organizations to model possible outcomes long before they materialize. By examining historical behavior alongside expected policy timelines, companies can simulate how tariff increases or reclassifications might affect margin. They can test the downstream effects of moving production from one Chinese province to another or shifting to a third-country supplier. These scenarios support more realistic budgeting and give procurement teams a stronger foundation for negotiation. When organizations have a view of potential cost shifts in advance, they protect margin more effectively and avoid the rapid scrambling that follows sudden policy changes.
Moving Beyond Recovery Toward Predictive Insight
Recovering overcharges will always be part of Freight Audit’s identity, but the most competitive organizations now use audit data to predict the conditions that create those overcharges in the first place. By studying patterns in surcharge changes, port behavior, and carrier routing, companies can see where volatility tends to emerge. This understanding helps them adjust their operations to preempt problems rather than correct them afterward. Many firms now build quarterly or even monthly landed cost forecasts driven by Freight Audit data. These projections incorporate everything from historical duty patterns to freight behavior to supplier reliability indicators. The result is less guesswork and more confidence when planning budgets or committing to pricing. The Freight Audit function becomes not only a safety net but also a strategic advisor.
How Organizations Use Freight Audit Intelligence Across Teams
Finance relies on Freight Audit data to improve forecasting and manage accrual accuracy. Procurement uses it to evaluate suppliers based on total landed cost rather than headline pricing. Logistics uses it to identify routing inefficiencies, negotiate carrier agreements, and understand the true impact of operational decisions. Compliance uses it to verify classifications and catch duty issues before they become expensive mistakes. Because each department draws from the same set of verified shipment information, organizations avoid the confusion that comes from competing versions of the truth. This alignment speeds decision-making and reduces the risk of overlooking cost drivers that sit outside any one department’s line of sight.
How Companies Build a More Tariff-Aware Audit Process
Companies that want to improve tariff strategy usually begin by improving data quality. Ensuring that SKU-level information, tariff codes, and purchase order data are captured consistently is the foundation for everything else. Integrating customs records into the freight audit system creates a single reference point for landed cost. Clear dashboards make it easier to identify trends such as rising duty exposure or shifting carrier patterns. Automated alerts allow teams to act quickly when something in the cost structure changes unexpectedly. When teams meet regularly to review these insights, they turn data into action. Over time, the process becomes part of how the organization operates rather than a project to revisit once or twice a year.
Keeping Data Practical and Human
The real purpose of Freight Audit intelligence is not to produce endless data but to make cost information understandable. A clean visualization showing landed cost by supplier or by port can help teams focus on the issues that truly matter. Technology ensures accuracy, structure, and scale, but it is human interpretation that brings meaning and direction. Experienced analysts look beyond the numbers, identifying themes, inconsistencies, or subtle patterns that automated systems would never flag. This combination – strong data with strong human judgment – is what helps organizations stay ahead of cost volatility.
Finding Clarity in a Complicated System
Tariffs will remain complicated and often unpredictable. The rules will shift, and the market will shift with them. But with accurate Freight Audit data, companies can see the effect clearly, sometimes even before it fully materializes in their cost structure. Visibility turns confusion into control. Freight Auditors often describe their work as transforming scattered or noisy information into a narrative that others can use. Every data point represents a detail in that story, and when the story is understood, supply chain decisions become more grounded and far less reactive.
The Future of Freight Audit and Trade Insight
The same structures that help organizations manage tariff unpredictability now support other areas such as emissions reporting, risk scoring, and supplier performance monitoring. Freight Audit has evolved into a central hub that connects finance, logistics, procurement, compliance, and supply chain strategy. As global trade becomes even more complex, having one trusted source of shipment-level truth becomes a competitive advantage. Rather than acting as a back-office checkpoint, Freight Audit is emerging as a strategic intelligence function. It gives companies a clearer understanding of how their supply chain behaves, how their costs shift, and where they can improve resilience.
Conclusion
The relationship between the United States and China, and across the globe, will continue to evolve in unpredictable ways. But unpredictability does not have to lead to confusion. Freight Audit intelligence gives organizations the clarity needed to understand where their costs are rising, why they are changing, and how to respond effectively. When companies use this insight strategically, they can anticipate landed cost movement, prepare for tariff-related shifts, and protect margin in a challenging trade environment. Technology organizes the data, but people interpret it. And when informed people are supported by structured, reliable data, uncertainty becomes far more manageable. In a world shaped by shifting trade dynamics, that combination is a genuine advantage.
Written by Jim GREGOR
VP Interlog North America
Contact: jgregor@interlogservices.com | +1 734 585 6413
