9 ms·
De minimis exemption ends
- ajd555 1y agohttps://archive.is/VCMLa https://archive.is/VCMLa
- bananapub 1y agofascinating how the reporting doesn't clarify that it's not just a bunch of busy work and a tax on Americans, but that the US didn't even bother making the system exist before introducing the rules. from last week: > “Key questions remain unresolved, particularly regarding how and by whom customs duties will be collected in the future, what additional data will be required, and how the data transmission to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection will be carried out,” DHL, the largest shipping provider in Europe, said in a statement. https://apnews.com/article/us-tariffs-goods-services-suspension-85c7b36b9e92c0e640dfe2ac418cd907 https://apnews.com/article/us-tariffs-goods-services-suspens...
- ajd555 1y agoGood find - it is pretty crazy how this impactful change (I can see the logistics/supply chain subreddits abuzz with this news) isn't at all clearly defined. Per your link: > They cite ambiguity about what kind of goods are covered by the new rules, and the lack of time to process their implications.
- RobotToaster 1y agoRoyal mail in the UK had to flat stop accepting parcels to the USA for several days just to have time to put in place a stopgap measure. I now have to pay an extra £1.50 "administration charge" for every gift I send to a friend in the USA, despite gifts under $100 still being exempt.
- sevenseacat 1y agoAustralia Post has stopped on-shipping (I don't know the technical term) parcels from other countries to the US, and also stopped accepting parcels valued over $150 bound for the US.
- IAmGraydon 1y agoIt’s worse than that. After they realized that they had no system to support their idiotic plan, they tried to make it every other country’s problem by requiring that the vendor making the sale (in the other country) collect the tax and remit it to the US before the package gets here. Previously, tariffs were collected in the US at the port of entry or on delivery for smaller packages, and the sender didn’t have to worry about collecting them. This change is what caused all of the foreign postal services to halt service to the US.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- nsriv 1y agoYeah, I haven't seen enough coverage of this. Just edicts and no process and Customs is still reeling and never found their feet from the first time tariffs were imposed. There isn't even a remit process or guidelines if a foreign postal service tried to send the payments.
- linuxftw 1y agoCustomarily duties are paid by the importer, often through a broker. How will this be handled for small items? Most likely a business will import products in bulk and pay the duties as normal. How will it work for small, one off purchases? Well, I don't see how the tax payers are under any obligation to streamline that for people. The net effect will be to buy from US suppliers/importers, not directly from overseas.
- dehugger 1y agoIve implemented a lot of logic for international parcel shipments. In this industry something as small as a label placed a couple inches off can be grounds for very expensive chargeback. It's a very litigious space. The fact that no one has the slightest clue how to implement this is insanity to the third degree.
- matthewaveryusa 1y agoGood. Deminimis is what allows low effort arbitrage of sales straight from foreign countries to the detriment of any local business engaged in anything beyond drop shipping with maybe a few extra steps. We really don't need subsidized trinkets going from ali express to landfills faster than greased lightning.
- ants_everywhere 1y agoIt's not clear that adding bureaucracy to help local businesses at the expense of the consumer is a net win
- evidencetamper 1y agoIt's also not clear that allowing factories that underpay exploited workers to ship stuff over is a net win
- gruez 1y agoBut it's not like as if ending de minimis would mean those goods will stop coming over. It still will, just through brick and mortar retailers and amazon FBA.
- kevinmchugh 1y agoDe minimis also impacts all goods, including those made by well-paid laborers and from countries that meet our exceed American labor standards.
- ants_everywhere 1y agoI think with all economic policy it's good to weigh the pros and cons and have a serious discussion of them. What I object to is that in practice people just side with their politics "team" like in sports and create post-hoc justifications for policy created for unrelated reasons. I'm in favor of evidence-based trade policy, but this isn't that unfortunately. The closest thing we have to evidence-based policy is the economic consensus, and the current administration is making a big show of disagreeing with the consensus for non-evidence-based reasons.
- caseysoftware 1y agoSeems like a positive development from an enviromental point of view.. less low quality crap from Shein and Temu means less energy shipping it and less garbage later. Win win.
- watwut 1y agoEnvironmental point of view would welcome wind electricity and generally pretty much any other administration
- brookst 1y agoThat’s true, but “this policy will be good for the environment” is not the same thing as “the people who instituted this policy are unequivocally good for the environment”.
- watwut 1y agoThat is true but environmental impact is minimal and likelihood that it is genuin care about environmental even smaller.
- brookst 1y agoTrue, but not everything needs to be about declaring people saints or demons. It’s possible to consider a policy’s actual real world impact without turning it into further proof of your strongly held convictions.
- watwut 1y agoThe comment was not about the policy’s actual real world impact. That is what I said in my second comment. That comment was not an attempt to evaluate the policy, bit an attempt to make it sound better due to made up environmental concern. We are overall already treating too many clearly bad faith arguments as if we all were naive polaynnas. There is no reason to insist on that as mandatory strategy.
- LightBug1 1y agoNew Temu marketing to US Customers: "Shop like a hundred-aire !!!"
- nemo44x 1y agoThe EU is working on a similar thing. The concept has been exploited by global drop shippers and sites like Temu. Obviously there will be some disruption as everyone adjusts.
- maxerickson 1y agoTrade restrictions are mostly stupid (short term restrictions tied to clear objectives can make sense). If local businesses are paying taxes to import goods in bulk, we should alleviate that, not add friction to small transactions.
- ReptileMan 1y agoTemu pays vat and import duties in EU.
- nemo44x 1y agoNo they don’t. But they will soon.
- sleepyguy 1y agoThe consumer and small business lose, all because China couldn't resist taking advantage of the program. Now, simply ordering any item from Canada or Europe that is not available in the US will incur costs that are several times the item's value. Why not just end De Minimis to China and leave it for the rest of the world that doesn't take advantage of it and reciprocates with their own De Minimis for US Imports?
- the_mitsuhiko 1y ago> all because China couldn't resist taking advantage of the program It’s not China but businesses. Mostly Chinese businesses but it’s still a lot of individual companies that utilize it.
- ReptileMan 1y agoBecause then you will order from Kyrgyzstan. The same way EU trade with Kyrgyzstan jumped like 100 fold after the sanctions against Russia.
- sleepyguy 1y agoNo, because I like to order items from Canada and the EU that will now incur an enormous duty. A t-shirt from Canada or Germany will incur additional fees of $50 -$250 USD, depending on where it is cleared. There is the law of unintended consequences. Other countries will now make American small business products much more expensive to export. Why would they give a De Minimis to these small businesses when the USA doesn't reciprocate? You're only thinking about China and not the rest of the World. US small businesses buy things (under $800) from countries like Canada and the EU, and were able to do so because of De Minimus. Canadians could buy things from US small businesses without worrying about duties as long as it was under $500. Now even the smallest item, even a gift from abroad worth $20, will incur a duty of $50-$250 plus administrative fees from the carrier.
- ReptileMan 1y agoUsually taxes are percentage of the value of the import. Where do you get those 250$? > Other countries will now make American small business products much more expensive to export. They already are/were. From EU it never made sense to buy anything from small US business - with the absurd shipping costs and VAT.
- ReptileMan 1y agoIn Europe I am forced to pay 20-sh percent VAT on shipping + cost of goods when importing and eventually above 150 eur a small customs duty. The US Deminimis seemed quite generous. No wonder it is removed.
- frantathefranta 1y agoThe interesting thing is that at least my shipments from Aliexpress to the EU were always invoiced at $3-5 no matter how much I actually paid for them, circumventing the need to pay tax and duty on packages. I wonder if they’ll do the same now for the US, because my last packages (to the US) were delivered in February and were invoiced at the correct amount (though they were not above the de minimis amount)
- Fade_Dance 1y agoThis has been a widespread phenomenon in the US since forever in the private shipper space. "Mark as gift" "value is $5". The issue of course is that it's fraudulent. It remains to be seen how closely the US is going to be enforcing it. I have a feeling Chinese shippers will be under the most scrutiny.
- bgnn 1y agoThey can ship it from EU or Mexico or what have you. This type of warehouse and forwarding service is very widespread.
- wan23 1y agoGenerous is a strange choice of word - it's like implying the government is entitled to its own citizens' money, and we should consider ourselves lucky that they weren't taking as much of it.
- ReptileMan 1y agoI mean in the US constitution it is explicitly stated that interstate commerce is under the USG hat. So yes the government is entitled to it's citizens money when they cross the border.
- loloquwowndueo 1y agoJust remember it’s not just crap from Shein, Temu, Ali express that’s being hit. Your former “friends” and long-time trade partners are also being impacted by this blanket policy. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/de-minimis-u-s-canada-ending-1.7618234 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/de-minimis-u-s-canada-endin...
- pimlottc 1y agoWhat do you mean by putting "friends" in scare quotes?
- ricardo81 1y agoNot GP but presumably implying that is not how you treat friends and/or a policy targetting China has collateral damage.
- xethos 1y ago> a policy targetting China has collateral damage. It is still a policy from someone threatening economic annexation of Canada. He's dropped the rhetoric, but I doubt he's given up on the concept. "Targeting China" is a very kind, possibly even forgetful, way of phrasing it. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5071665-trump-economic-force-canada/ https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5071665-trump-ec...
- IAmBroom 1y agoBelieve it or not, not everything is about Canada. Trump hates China. His boss told him to.
- loloquwowndueo 1y agoNot everything is about Canada, no. Mexico has also been disproportionately impacted by these protectionist policies. And that’s just the immediate neighbours with which the US has pursued trade agreements for decades.
- hypeatei 1y agoI'm glad to see people in this thread saying that this will be an environmental win while we're ending subsidies for "Unreliable, Foreign-Controlled Energy Sources"[0] and "Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry"[1] There is no good here. I don't when it became popular or acceptable to restrict free trade and ignore reality. 0: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/07/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-ends-market-distorting-subsidies-for-unreliable-foreign-controlled-energy-sources/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/07/fact-sheet-pr... 1: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reinvigorating-americas-beautiful-clean-coal-industry-and-amending-executive-order-14241/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/rein...
- gruez 1y ago>I'm glad to see people in this thread saying that this will be an environmental win while we're ending subsidies for "Unreliable, Foreign-Controlled Energy Sources"[0] and "Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry"[1] see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45074362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45074362
- hypeatei 1y agoThat statement is pointless. Anything in isolation can be "good", just like if someones house burned down you could say that having insurance was "good" but it ignores the bigger picture.
- tempodox 1y ago“Beautiful Clean Coal Industry”? Seriously?
- jiggawatts 1y agoHe's quoting the President: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reinvigorating-americas-beautiful-clean-coal-industry-and-amending-executive-order-14241/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/rein...
- 1y ago
- djoldman 1y agoIn a world with no friction, one would want tariffs to apply to all goods. The de minimis exemption dealt with the fact that it was a PITA to do all the paperwork etc. that accompanies a tariff. Obviously the main problem is that tariffs do not lead to positive future outcomes for the country levying them.
- eviks 1y agoIn a world without friction tariffs wouldn't exist since they represent friction
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- insane_dreamer 1y agoThis is one of the very few (only?) moves by this Admin that I agree with. Yes, it's hurts hobbyists ordering from AliExpress, but it's a loophole that has been largely exploited.
- DisjointedHunt 1y agoThe de-minimus exception on China was dropped in May. China is 75% of exceptions. This simply expires the exception for the remaining 25%.
- firesteelrain 1y agoI was buying a lot of custom, fully populated hobby PCBs and the price has skyrocketed so much that it’s too cost prohibitive to order from JLCPCB. You can order PCBs from Oshpark however the boards don’t come fully populated with all of your components so you would need to order from like Mouser and surface mount all of them yourself (for my application) To put it in perspective, used to pay about $85-$90 for 10 completed boards —- shipped —- now it is $316ish for 10 boards shipped.
- CamperBob2 1y agoStill an incredible bargain compared to any US-based production house. That's always been my problem with buying American. I'd be willing to pay 2x as much to support manufacturers in my own country. Maybe 3x. But 10x-15x as much? EABOD, I'll stick with China. While infuriating, the Trump tariffs are nowhere near enough to alter the outcome of that calculation.
- firesteelrain 1y agoI can’t even find somewhere in the US equivalent to JLCPCB for fully populated hobby PCBs! Plus these are going on high altitude balloons aka throwaway so a lot of people have a hard time spending that
- CamperBob2 1y agoI've heard good things about MacroFab in Houston, but no personal experience with them.
- com2kid 1y agoOn one project I worked on, we tried sourcing prototype boards from an American supplier and they put a bunch of knock-off parts on it. Meanwhile our Chinese suppliers were honest with us. The one benefit the American places are supposed to have, they managed to squander through either sheer greed or incompetence.
- ycui1986 1y ago
- skybrian 1y agoMaybe it will help if the Supreme Court rules the right way on tariffs?
- frogperson 1y agois there anything the republicans cant make worse?
- jgalt212 1y agoThe De minimis exemption was set at $800. To me, $800 is not de minimis.
- jsmith45 1y agoHistorically from a revenue perspective essentially all the tarrif revenue came from bulk imports (trucks, ships, etc). It is important to also capture tarrifs from high value parcels, as for small but high value items a parcel can very much be a similar bulk import. (Picture diamonds. A moderate sized parcel full of them is very much a bulk import). But at the same time trying to collect tarrifs on every parcel was historically deemed non-viable. Way too much work for too little gain. Especially since historically, the addressee of the parcel often ends up paying the tarrif, this requiring customs to communicate this to the parcel carriers broker, who must communicate it and collect from the end customer, who finally gives the money to the broker, who submits it to the government. Meanwhile CBP needs to store this package. This whole process ends up just annoying your countries own citizens, and generated little revenue, so a de minimis exemption of some form was highly desireable. And to most politicians there seemed like little downside to setting it fairly large. Sure $800 is probably larger than reasonable, but it certainly means the average person would rarely ever need to interact with this process, and that was good enough.
- animitronix 1y agoGoodbye Temu, you Chinese garbage fest