Tempo de leitura: 3 minutos<\/small><\/p> \n
When foreign trade zones were created in the 1930s, they served as liminal spaces, softening the full force of that era\u2019s protectionist policies for importers. As US protectionism returns, they are resuming their original purpose. US companies are increasingly turning to FTZs as a structural response to an unpredictable tariff environment, which signals that the market has stopped treating the disruption as temporary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout 2025, US companies tried a range of short-term fixes for tariffs. These included frontloading inventory before higher levies kicked in, absorbing tariff costs rather than passing them on to consumers, and seeking formal tariff exclusions or exemptions from the government. These responses help explain why the economic damage from tariffs in 2025 was smaller<\/a> than most economists had predicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shifting operations to an FTZ, however, can require significant costs, legal restructuring, and new operational infrastructure. The benefits often only exceed the costs over the long run, and they grow larger with greater tariff volatility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The numbers suggest companies are increasingly making that choice. In 2024, the value of shipments into FTZs was already increasing, totalling some $964bn from $949bn the prior year, government data shows<\/a>. Then, in the months after President Donald Trump\u2019s election and talk of tariffs started to materialise, company interest in FTZs roughly doubled<\/a> according to zone operators. Zone consultants, meanwhile, saw enquiries about tariff mitigation running two to three times above normal levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Early reports suggest this trajectory continued in 2025. A National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones survey shows that 49 per cent of private sector FTZ users and operators saw overall activities increase in 2025, via higher production levels, goods received, exports or inventory volumes. More than 83 per cent of surveyed operators anticipated higher tenant applications and overall activity this year. NAFTZ president Jeff Tafel told Global Trade Review in late 2025 that FTZ interest had risen to six times above the levels seen before Trump\u2019s return to the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This surge, however, cannot be fully attributed to trade policy. That\u2019s because the tariff reduction benefits of FTZs are not what they used to be. When announcing the so-called \u2018liberation day\u2019 tariffs in April 2025, the administration curtailed the traditional headline benefit known as \u2018inverted tariff relief\u2019, which allows tenants to pay the lower finished goods rate instead of the higher component rate when selling domestically. It means that most FTZ manufacturers selling to US markets eventually pay roughly the same tariffs as everyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But this argument obscures how the remaining FTZ benefits still act as a meaningful buffer during periods of volatility. Chief among them are duty deferrals, which enable companies to delay paying tariffs until they actually sell their products. Another is duty elimination on exports, which helps tenants avoid the lengthy and complex process of obtaining duty drawbacks when selling abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both offer greater flexibility, cost savings and real cash flow benefits. In NAFTZ\u2019s survey, they were among the most frequently cited benefits of using FTZs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the liberation day tariffs, their judicial reversal and replacement levies pile up, companies are not turning to FTZs for tariff elimination. They are turning to them for something more basic: the ability to defer duties until goods actually sell, and to export without navigating the drawback labyrinth. In a protectionist era, that breathing room is protection enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fonte: FDi Intelligence | Foto: Reprodu\u00e7\u00e3o<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 3 minutos<\/small> When foreign trade zones were created in the 1930s, they served as liminal spaces, softening the full force of that era\u2019s protectionist policies for importers. As US protectionism returns, they are resuming their original purpose. US companies are increasingly turning to FTZs as a structural response to an unpredictable tariff environment, which signals that the market has stopped treating the disruption as temporary. Throughout 2025, US companies tried a range of short-term fixes for tariffs. These included frontloading inventory before higher levies Continue lendo<\/span>\u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9109,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[72,80,74],"class_list":["entry","author-fpx","post-9108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-noticias","tag-abrazpe","tag-comercio-exterior","tag-zpe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9110,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9108\/revisions\/9110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abrazpe.org.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Benefit cut<\/h2>\n\n\n\n