7 ms·

> Closing these de minimus exemptions is making it harder for discerning consumers to buy higher quality goods than are currently available in the US right now.

> Closing these de minimus exemptions is making it harder for discerning consumers to buy higher quality goods than are currently available in the US right now. Everything has a trade-off. On the other hand, it also prevents companies from dumping artificially cheap and crappy goods (TEMU) on US markets and making it nearly impossible for others to compete. Unsuspecting consumers buy a super cheap (subsidized) crap product on Amazon or Temu or Shien or wherever - probably a knock-off of an American product, have it shipped to the US, then it disintegrates after a couple of uses or stops working, and we wind up with pollution, additional landfill, and relentless consumerism that's harmful to the country all so we can help a certain country whose name starts with a C keep the lights on and keep factories running so that they don't see unemployment numbers tick up. Legitimate businesses selling higher quality products where they exist will be able to figure it out. Or not. It's not a big deal if your sunscreen is slightly worse than the Korean version (which I use). Maybe it just hasn't been approved because they haven't done the work to apply because they can get around working with our government and making sure their product meets our safety standards because of the de minimus loophole? There's also safety concerns, which I think the CBP did a good job of overviewing here: https://www.cbp.gov/frontline/buyer-beware-bad-actors-exploit-de-minimis-shipments https://www.cbp.gov/frontline/buyer-beware-bad-actors-exploi... . Send drugs or guns or illegal animal products to the US, get caught, who cares you live in (not the US) so you can just spin up another sham company and do it again.

bigyabai 1y ago
> and we wind up with pollution, additional landfill, and relentless consumerism that's harmful to the country But that happens regardless of whether or not you import manufactured goods, doesn't it?
- nluken 1y ago
  You're not going to get new clothing for TEMU prices without the de minimis exception. In theory, the higher price of these goods will decrease the amount they're purchased and lessen impact of pollution. As others in this thread point out, though, there are other casualties of this change.
  - Scoundreller 1y ago
    Temu should already be paying the tariffs on China-origin goods. De minims for China origin stuff ended May 2nd. Unless they’re sending it all via China Post and US CBP is letting it pass through anyway. Anecdotally, most of their stuff in major cities is arriving by Gig couriers or from US warehouses (ie: not postal imports) = tariffs applied. Where Temu and big retailers win the game is that they can structure it to exclude last-mile delivery/logistic cost in their tariff calculations, and that’s a lot of the price.
Scoundreller 1y ago
My counterexample is that I sell mid-high end vintage bicycle parts. There’s about a 0% chance of Shimano or Campagnolo bringing that production to the US because they haven’t made this stuff in several decades. I’ve now jacked my US shipping prices to account for tariffs. I’ll probably lose all US sales. US buyers probably won’t realize that ~5-10% of its supply has disappeared for these parts. They also may not recognize that US sellers can/will raise their prices accordingly but they will have that increase in price. Heck, I know some Canadian sellers that set up their supply chain well enough that they put down a US location and buyers think they’re buying domestic. Those will be toast (or have to vastly inflate their pricing).
- bsimpson 1y ago
  I bought a pair of motorcycle boots this way. It was a brand that isn't routinely imported into the US. The seller was a dealership near the Canadian border. It was something like they stocked them in London, Ontario and sold them from their Detroit subsidiary.
- derivagral 1y ago
  > buyers think they’re buying domestic This is hard to tell from the discussion, but are you defending this practice?
ljsprague 1y ago
>the Korean version (which I use) Beauty of Joseon?
- ericmay 1y ago
  Yea that’s what I use!
voxl 1y ago
Everything does not have a tradeoff. This philosophy alone is bullshit.
- prime_ursid 1y ago
  Sometimes the tradeoff is that someone gets richer / inflates their ego while most people’s lives get worse in a tangible way.
phil21 1y ago
The tradeoff here is “pay the middleman markup tax” for the most part. Instead of getting cheap Chinese made clothing for $5, you now get to pay Walmart $17 for the same thing. If we are going to outsource production in order to save on consumer goods costs, the consumer should be the one reaping the surplus - not capital. Properly informed buyers were quite capable of getting quality product out of China for a tenth of the cost of exactly the same thing stocked on major retailer shelves here. While there are certainly abuses of the current system, it would be best to close those loopholes vs. just give a bunch of profits to giant companies for effectively doing nothing more than having scale and volume. If you’re lucky they may do some curation too. Not everything was Temu or Shein. Plenty of smaller factories basically going direct to consumer in a win win sort of scenario. They get paid more, and the customer doesn’t pay any middlemen.
- ericmay 1y ago
  > Instead of getting cheap Chinese made clothing for $5, you now get to pay Walmart $17 for the same thing. Right... but now that is (arguably) cost competitive with American labor and manufacturing. Or at least it's more cost competitive than it otherwise would be. I mean this is kind of the price of putting what we say first. Want higher minimum wages, higher environmental standards, unionized labor, benefits/healthcare, lunch breaks, etc.? We will have to pay more, and we should, for those things.
  - donkeybeer 1y ago
    You should trust people who live in countries that tariff a lot. You won't get quality crap. When tariffs cause the imported good to become equal to $200, the local good doesn't suddenly get cheaper it rises to match $180. Obviously any incentive that remained for local product to improve is now totally dashed too because of state forced back protection from competition. You end up paying multiple times the prices for the same shit sane countries buy much cheaper than you and life turns to shit, and the lower classes don't get better but end up loosing more money on the same crap.
    - ericmay 1y ago
blurbleblurble 1y ago
This is more like setting `trade: off`.

bigyabai 1y ago

> and we wind up with pollution, additional landfill, and relentless consumerism that's harmful to the country But that happens regardless of whether or not you import manufactured goods, doesn't it?

nluken 1y ago
You're not going to get new clothing for TEMU prices without the de minimis exception. In theory, the higher price of these goods will decrease the amount they're purchased and lessen impact of pollution. As others in this thread point out, though, there are other casualties of this change.
- Scoundreller 1y ago
  Temu should already be paying the tariffs on China-origin goods. De minims for China origin stuff ended May 2nd. Unless they’re sending it all via China Post and US CBP is letting it pass through anyway. Anecdotally, most of their stuff in major cities is arriving by Gig couriers or from US warehouses (ie: not postal imports) = tariffs applied. Where Temu and big retailers win the game is that they can structure it to exclude last-mile delivery/logistic cost in their tariff calculations, and that’s a lot of the price.

Scoundreller 1y ago

My counterexample is that I sell mid-high end vintage bicycle parts. There’s about a 0% chance of Shimano or Campagnolo bringing that production to the US because they haven’t made this stuff in several decades. I’ve now jacked my US shipping prices to account for tariffs. I’ll probably lose all US sales. US buyers probably won’t realize that ~5-10% of its supply has disappeared for these parts. They also may not recognize that US sellers can/will raise their prices accordingly but they will have that increase in price. Heck, I know some Canadian sellers that set up their supply chain well enough that they put down a US location and buyers think they’re buying domestic. Those will be toast (or have to vastly inflate their pricing).

bsimpson 1y ago
I bought a pair of motorcycle boots this way. It was a brand that isn't routinely imported into the US. The seller was a dealership near the Canadian border. It was something like they stocked them in London, Ontario and sold them from their Detroit subsidiary.
derivagral 1y ago
> buyers think they’re buying domestic This is hard to tell from the discussion, but are you defending this practice?

ljsprague 1y ago

>the Korean version (which I use) Beauty of Joseon?

ericmay 1y ago
Yea that’s what I use!

voxl 1y ago

Everything does not have a tradeoff. This philosophy alone is bullshit.

prime_ursid 1y ago
Sometimes the tradeoff is that someone gets richer / inflates their ego while most people’s lives get worse in a tangible way.

phil21 1y ago

The tradeoff here is “pay the middleman markup tax” for the most part. Instead of getting cheap Chinese made clothing for $5, you now get to pay Walmart $17 for the same thing. If we are going to outsource production in order to save on consumer goods costs, the consumer should be the one reaping the surplus - not capital. Properly informed buyers were quite capable of getting quality product out of China for a tenth of the cost of exactly the same thing stocked on major retailer shelves here. While there are certainly abuses of the current system, it would be best to close those loopholes vs. just give a bunch of profits to giant companies for effectively doing nothing more than having scale and volume. If you’re lucky they may do some curation too. Not everything was Temu or Shein. Plenty of smaller factories basically going direct to consumer in a win win sort of scenario. They get paid more, and the customer doesn’t pay any middlemen.

ericmay 1y ago
> Instead of getting cheap Chinese made clothing for $5, you now get to pay Walmart $17 for the same thing. Right... but now that is (arguably) cost competitive with American labor and manufacturing. Or at least it's more cost competitive than it otherwise would be. I mean this is kind of the price of putting what we say first. Want higher minimum wages, higher environmental standards, unionized labor, benefits/healthcare, lunch breaks, etc.? We will have to pay more, and we should, for those things.
- donkeybeer 1y ago
  You should trust people who live in countries that tariff a lot. You won't get quality crap. When tariffs cause the imported good to become equal to $200, the local good doesn't suddenly get cheaper it rises to match $180. Obviously any incentive that remained for local product to improve is now totally dashed too because of state forced back protection from competition. You end up paying multiple times the prices for the same shit sane countries buy much cheaper than you and life turns to shit, and the lower classes don't get better but end up loosing more money on the same crap.
  - ericmay 1y ago

blurbleblurble 1y ago

This is more like setting `trade: off`.