Transaction complete without gas fee?

I wanted to send a small amount of Tether USDT from Kraken to another exchange via ERC20 to verify it all worked correctly, 2.5USDT to be precise.

After just a few minutes Kraken said the transaction went well and etherscan.io also says the transaction was a success, but there is something I don't understand.

First if all, the gas fee was 18$, which is insane for just 2.5USDT, but the thing is, none of it was taken from my portfolio, and yet it said "Status: Success". Is it normal?

Then, after a couple of hours, the amount I moved still isn't present on the receiving platform and I don't understand why. Does it take much more time after the transaction was completed? did the gas fee eat up all the Tether? was the amount moved not enough to pay for gas fees?