diff --git a/api/internal/target/kusttarget.go b/api/internal/target/kusttarget.go
index ba3f700fb..140c97a9f 100644
--- a/api/internal/target/kusttarget.go
+++ b/api/internal/target/kusttarget.go
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ import (
 	"sigs.k8s.io/kustomize/api/internal/plugins/loader"
 	"sigs.k8s.io/kustomize/api/internal/utils"
 	"sigs.k8s.io/kustomize/api/konfig"
+	load "sigs.k8s.io/kustomize/api/loader"
 	"sigs.k8s.io/kustomize/api/resmap"
 	"sigs.k8s.io/kustomize/api/resource"
 	"sigs.k8s.io/kustomize/api/types"
@@ -366,7 +367,8 @@ func (kt *KustTarget) accumulateResources(
 	for _, path := range paths {
 		// try loading resource as file then as base (directory or git repository)
 		if errF := kt.accumulateFile(ra, path, origin); errF != nil {
-			if strings.HasPrefix(path, "https://") || strings.HasPrefix(path, "http://") {
+			// not much we can do if the error is an HTTP error so we bail out
+			if errors.Is(errF, load.ErrorHTTP) {
 				return nil, errF
 			}
 			ldr, err := kt.ldr.New(path)
diff --git a/api/loader/errors.go b/api/loader/errors.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..5281a1cd7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/api/loader/errors.go
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+package loader
+
+import "fmt"
+
+var ErrorHTTP = fmt.Errorf("HTTP Error")
diff --git a/api/loader/fileloader.go b/api/loader/fileloader.go
index c2e7bb9e2..4426097cf 100644
--- a/api/loader/fileloader.go
+++ b/api/loader/fileloader.go
@@ -314,7 +314,7 @@ func (fl *fileLoader) Load(path string) ([]byte, error) {
 		}
 		defer resp.Body.Close()
 		if resp.StatusCode < 200 || resp.StatusCode > 299 {
-			return nil, fmt.Errorf("URL returned error %d (%s)", resp.StatusCode, http.StatusText(resp.StatusCode))
+			return nil, fmt.Errorf("%w: status code %d (%s)", ErrorHTTP, resp.StatusCode, http.StatusText(resp.StatusCode))
 		}
 		body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
 		if err != nil {