In the whirlwind of trade policy that has defined 2025, a little-known profession has been thrust into the spotlight: the customs broker. These experts, the hidden cogs of global commerce, are now on the front lines, struggling to keep pace with President Donald Trump's relentless and often chaotic tariff announcements.
The System Turned Upside-Down
For veterans like Amy Magnus, a broker with half a century of experience, the past year has been unlike any other. Having navigated regulations for everything from Egyptian mummies to circus animals, she now confronts a trade system she describes as fundamentally broken. "2025 has changed the trade system," says Magnus, based in Marco Island, Florida. "It wasn't perfect before, but it was a functioning system. Now, it is a lot more chaotic and troubling."
The pace and opacity of change have been staggering. Brokers witnessed tariffs announced on Canada and Mexico at the start of Trump's second term, only to see them paused two days later. They have grappled with levies on steel, seafood, cars, copper, polysilicon, and pharmaceuticals. Each shift forces them to translate high-level policy into precise, line-by-line code for thousands of shipments.
Al Raffa, a broker in Elizabeth, New Jersey, sums up the disruption: "We were used to decades of a certain way of processing, and from January to now, that universe has been turned kind of upside-down on us." His work now involves untangling products like cheese, which might fall under two, three, or even five different tariff codes instead of one.
Vague Orders and Vanishing Guidance
The traditional rulebook has been discarded. In the past, thick volumes of trade regulations were issued well in advance, with clear language and periods for comment. Now, major policy shifts might be announced via a Truth Social post or an oversized chart in the Rose Garden. This has left brokers in a constant state of vigilance.
"You'd be remiss not to be looking at the White House website on a daily basis, multiple times a day," admits Raffa, whose button reads "Make Trade Boring Again." Each new executive order sends brokerage firms into a scramble to dissect vague wording, update systems, and alert clients whose profit margins hang in the balance.
JD Gonzalez, a third-generation broker in Laredo, Texas, and president of the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America, highlights the core problem. "The order is kind of vague sometimes, the guidance that's being provided is sometimes murky, and we're trying to make the determination," the 62-year-old explains. The complexity has doubled the time needed to process items, leading many firms to increase their fees.
A Perfect Storm of Challenges
The administrative chaos is compounded by other factors. Cost-cutting at the Department of Government Efficiency under Elon Musk led to layoffs and retirements of trusted federal contacts brokers rely on for clarification. A government shutdown slowed port operations. Fearful of contradicting the administration, remaining officials have become cautious, making clear interpretations of tariff rules even harder to obtain.
For Magnus, some policies defy logic, like treating Canada as an adversary or slapping Switzerland with 39% tariffs. She sees international trade as a ballet that reduces global conflict, and the current approach undermines that delicate choreography. The workload has become so relentless that she hasn't taken a vacation this year, with colleagues joking about which new tariff edict will drop each Friday afternoon.
Despite the turmoil, there is a silver lining: public recognition. "Up until this year, people were clueless what I did," says Raffa, who now feels a sense of pride when he sees imported goods on supermarket shelves, knowing the regulatory hurdles overcome to get them there.
Yet, the fundamental uncertainty remains deeply unsettling for professionals built on precision. "We don't like to have any doubt," Magnus states. "When we ourselves are struggling, trying to interpret and understand the meaning of some of these things, it is a very unsettling place to be." As one White House order undoes a slew of agricultural tariffs just hours after an interview, the race to decode Trump's trade rules shows no sign of slowing.
