Originally posted by little laker I believe that your sorta right Steve, but also sorta wrong.
If I remember correctly, if there's a company making cameras in North America then you could be dinged duty.
However I don't recall any common day cameras actually being made on this body of land.
I may be wrong about this though.
You may well be correct. I will just take a look in the U.S. tariff schedule (HTS) tomorrow. It provides a quick and authoritative summary of the tariff rates as well as applicable treaties. The applicable duties (if any) will be listed there.
The main thing about NAFTA is that most of its provisions are related to goods manufactured, produced, or significantly modified in the member countries. The idea is to allow free movement of parts and finished goods between manufacturing entities on both sides of both borders without having to pay duty at every turn. The primary manufacturing industries that pushed for and benefited from NAFTA are automobile and heavy truck manufacturing. As such, most of the regulation details are related to parts for cars and trucks. After that are provisions for textiles, farm goods, and lumber. Stuff that is not manufactured, produced, or significantly modified in a member country is generally liable for the base tariff for that good.
In any case, the tariff schedule will have the information.
Steve
BTW, my interest in this thread is based on personal curiosity since I occasionally buy/sell across international borders. To date, I have never imported any item over $200 USD, but would like to know what the applicable regulations are. I am fortunate since aspects of my work involve customs rules and duty calculation and I have access to documentation.