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]
There is no good here. I don't when it became popular or acceptable to restrict free trade and ignore reality.
>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]
That 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 · 9m ago
“Beautiful Clean Coal Industry”? Seriously?
matthewaveryusa · 7h ago
Good. 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 · 6h ago
It's not clear that adding bureaucracy to help local businesses at the expense of the consumer is a net win
evidencetamper · 6h ago
It's also not clear that allowing factories that underpay exploited workers to ship stuff over is a net win
ants_everywhere · 6h ago
I 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.
evidencetamper · 5h ago
It is impossible to establish causality in complex economic systems to be able to have evidence based decisions.
The current economic direction is not a consensus. The Western democracies are increasingly politically polarized and economically volatile.
Between the many different crises (unaffordable real estate, populational collapse, unsustainable environmental practices and global warming, increasing inequality, hollowing out of small and medium sized cities, and the list goes on), it is very difficult to justify the status quo.
maxerickson · 4h ago
There's also not really an objective outcome for a given policy, because you don't have a single grouping with aligned preferences.
You can estimate the impact objectively, but not whether that impact is good or bad.
ants_everywhere · 4h ago
If you don't like democracies or science then what is your proposed solution?
evidencetamper · 3h ago
That's an unfortunate and charged statement that misrepresents what I said.
A fundamental aspect of science is rigor. And a fundamental aspect of democracy is opposition.
RobotToaster · 2h ago
Your right, it's obviously much better to give money to bezos' warehouses that underpay exploited workers instead.
gruez · 6h ago
But 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.
mmcwilliams · 6h ago
The alternative here is the exploited worker will no longer have any job. Doesn't seem like that is a legitimate concern for their well-being.
Cheer2171 · 6h ago
Sure, tell me more how it is awesome that I can't order $100 of dollars of small bulk electronic components for my hobby work direct from Huaqiangbei and get them here in a week. There is no US manufacturer replacement. Instead I have to turn to an import/export middleman also sourcing from Huaqiangbei but at 4x cost. In the eloquent words of our dear leader: SAD!
RobotToaster · 6h ago
This is just a subsidy for American warehouses like amazon, who just act as middle men, making cheap crap slightly less cheap crap.
gruez · 6h ago
As opposed to the status quo of "this is just a subsidy for aliexpress/temu merchants, making cheap crap slightly cheaper"?
perihelions · 6h ago
What's the moral valence differentiating a "local business" from a local drop-shipper? What really *is* a business selling imported goods—if not a drop-shipper with a storefront?
Bold to hold contempt for free-market capitalism, when it's made your society so staggeringly wealthy, your concern of the day is literally worrying about landfills filling up with surplus wealth. Find some perspective.
bluGill · 6h ago
a local business needs to select what to sell. This is a valuable service.
falcor84 · 6h ago
Paying someone to reduce my own ability to choose? How does this work? Do they provide the most value if they offer just a single drop-shipped item that they believe I would want?
Wouldn't I just get better value from an independent review mechanism?
bluGill · 1h ago
How many near identical choices do you need? How muc time do you want to spend evaluating all those options. Someone else to narrow it down saves you a lot of effort.
when the differences don't matter or are things you areenot aware of this is more important.
loloquwowndueo · 6h ago
Just 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.
What do you mean by putting "friends" in scare quotes?
ricardo81 · 6h ago
Not GP but presumably implying that is not how you treat friends and/or a policy targetting China has collateral damage.
xethos · 6h 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.
Believe it or not, not everything is about Canada.
Trump hates China. His boss told him to.
xethos · 2h ago
No, but it hardly seems irrelevant when root comment links a Canadian Broadcast Corporation story about Canadian Mom'n'Pop stores
loloquwowndueo · 5h ago
Not 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.
loloquwowndueo · 6h ago
Justin Trudeau said it best:
the U.S. launched the trade war against Canada, “their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense.”
pimlottc · 5h ago
Ah, I was thinking of friends on an individual basis, not in geopolitical terms.
Waterluvian · 6h ago
I can’t speak for all Canadians but all the ones I know do not see America as a friend or partner anymore. The entire tone has changed in a way I’ve never before experienced.
I think the thing some Americans mess themselves up with is thinking that the world perceives their domestic politics the same way they do. From our level of abstraction, America voted and Americans decided the country is going to be an anti-science, protectionist menace.
IAmBroom · 5h ago
I can't speak for all Americans, but you're not wrong.
Protect yourself. If and when we have enough good governance to be friends again, we'll need your friendship.
Waterluvian · 5h ago
Yeah, that’s probably the other palpable sentiment worth sharing: Canadians badly want to be best friends with Americans. It’s been a very regrettable cultural divorce.
mindslight · 5h ago
Seconded. But also, don't forget that the same exact shit can happen in Canada as well. Especially with a national threat actor now physically next door (little green men, etc).
solox3 · 5h ago
Which straw broke the camel's back. Was it insulting the prime minister as a governor, threatening to annex the territory, threatening to "redraw borders", or calling Canadians "nasty people"?
Waterluvian · 5h ago
I think if we could point to a specific pivotal moment, it was when tariffs were first announced and Trudeau came on TV and discussed the difficult times ahead, the relationship as we knew it being over, and the announcement of counter tariffs and other plans. Then the Premiers announced things like removing American alcohol from shelves (Jack Daniel’s said this week that Canadian sales fell 62%), and shutting down various historical courtesies. For me at least that’s the moment it went from confusion, anger, and frustration to coordinated effort to take a defensive stance against the new aggressor nation.
The petty child-like name calling from the American president was mostly just an evocation of “I’m embarrassed for you.”
627467 · 4h ago
It's funny to see so much ideological incoherence:
> we should consume local produce, is more sustainable and supports local communities
> what's your carbon footprint?! You fly around in jets 3 times a year?!
> let's buy 30c disposable crap from across the world while essentially subsidizing advanced industrialization of societies completely disconnected from our own
mindslight · 3h ago
At least it's possible to tease out some nuance between those topics. Unlike all the people still simping for the Manchurian candidate's immediately self-defeating policies - let's compete with China through stiff import taxes that directly hurt American businesses, let's be strong by alienating our allies, let's fix the market for manual labor by arresting individual illegal immigrants while giving passes to big businesses employing them at scale, let's fix inflation and government overreach by printing $5T of new money and spending it on unaccountable jackboots. It's perversely amazing how this whole movement continues to run on empty spectacles and identity politics. When it finally burns through its fervor, all of the existing problems are still going to be there, plus a whole host of new problems.
mindslight · 4h ago
The comments still focusing on Shein/Temu/Ali are wild. De minimis for China ended back on May 2nd. From what I saw on Aliexpress, it wasn't even a speed bump - the prices just went up, with "customs charges included". I've been receiving orders just fine.
Trump's policies are big on tough talk while actually having the opposite effects of the marketing. High import taxes hurt the pre-imported selection available from domestic retailers, as sellers have to pay the tax ahead of the sale and navigate the uncertainty that the rates might change in the future. Whereas direct-from-China goods already have cash in hand to pay the tariffs, and the only uncertainty is in the few days between purchase and arrival at customs. I expect to be buying many more things direct from Aliexpress, as the tariffs set in, domestic inventory is exhausted, and domestic-seller prices creep upwards.
Furthermore, the high tariffs on China do encourage investments in factories. Specifically, Chinese investment in factories outside of China, for final assembly of products. Investing in the United States would not be prudent, with the environment of political instability. So these policies are effectively strengthening China's relationships with other countries.
Never mind that many of the companies still known for manufacturing quality goods do so in other western countries. If the goal was really to oppose China, then it should have been time to pull together with our allies - not to levy import taxes to keep them (price-) uncompetitive with Chinese products, while alienating them with hostile rhetoric. Ultimately, our adversaries couldn't have dreamed of more favorable policies.
djoldman · 5h ago
In 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.
caseysoftware · 6h ago
Seems 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.
Cheer2171 · 6h ago
Sure, tell me more how it is awesome that I can't order $100 of dollars of small bulk electronic components for my hobby work direct from Huaqiangbei and get them here in a week. There is no US manufacturer replacement. Instead I have to turn to an import/export middleman also sourcing from Huaqiangbei but at 4x cost to me.
The environment cost is higher with the middleman "small business" because they need their own logistics (likely Amazon). So instead of a carrier driving from the boat to USPS/OnTrac, it goes into the warehouses at Amazon. Wow! Thanks! World saved! In the eloquent words of our dear leader: SAD!
cosmicgadget · 4h ago
I don't understand, can't they ship as they do now and your hobby simply got a bit more expensive?
In any event, volumewise I presume Ali does more environmental damage than hobby electronics being shipped through Amazon.
withinboredom · 6h ago
Just think of all the American robot jobs this will produce for our AI overlords! More people than ever will be able to stay home and fuel the underground drug trade and/or porn industry: tax free!
No comments yet
emptysongglass · 6h ago
And note that basically no other developed country had this carve-out except the US. People are foaming at the mouths about this issue, but no one pointed a finger at the EU or anywhere else.
signal11 · 6h ago
I’m not sure I follow. The UK and other European countries have equivalents, although the term “de minimis” isn’t used. The UK has a £135 limit, Germany iirc had €150. This is the limit for duty exemptions, VAT still applies.
emptysongglass · 6h ago
You are correct that technically this is true. The EU has proposed to eliminate the threshold [1] but in practice EU consumers have not seen the benefit of the de minimis practiced by the US: try and import goods below the threshold from outside the EU and you will be hit by a variety of fees [2], making it uneconomical for a consumer to buy anything from outside.
"You are correct that technically this is true" is an odd way to admit your statement was completely false.
emptysongglass · 5h ago
But it's not. I do not enjoy the benefits of a de minimis as a resident of Denmark. Every policy set in place is to discourage my enjoyment of a de jure de minimis.
If you import goods into this country at below the threshold, you are very likely to pay more than the original price of the good itself. That's the truth. There is de minimis in name only.
watwut · 6h ago
EU does not demand foreign company collect their own internal taxes and send them over.
There is a reason shipping stopped.
emptysongglass · 6h ago
Look at my other comment. Most countries in the EU levy their own import fees that essentially make any de minimis in practice null.
US consumers have long enjoyed the privilege of actual de minimis, that is straight to their door, no fuss, no additional fees goods below the threshold.
HarHarVeryFunny · 6h ago
If people need clothes they are going to buy clothes, and it makes little difference (other than cost to American consumer) whether it's direct from Shein/etc or bought off Amazon from some American manufacturer. For every shipping container full of Chinese product, there are going to be thousands of Amazon delivery trucks out delivering it to people houses.
It's easy to be snobbish about "low quality crap" from Shein etc if you have the money and preference to buy better, but for many people cheap stuff from China, whether bought in Walmart or online, is a godsend.
In terms of jobs and American manufacturers, there is zero demand for clothing sweatshop jobs in America, just as you don't see Americans lining up to replace illegals for low wage crop picking jobs.
All this is doing is making things more expensive for consumers. It's a consumer tax paid for by those who can least afford it.
gruez · 6h ago
Not to mention that giving foreign storefronts a tax advantage is questionable at best. Do we really want to advantage random temu/aliexpress shops at the expense of brick and mortar retailers or even amazon, who at least employ local warehouse workers?
theamk · 6h ago
A lot of the stuff I am buying in China (electronic components and modules) either does not exists in US shops, or exists with very high markup (3x-5x). And even the stuff that is sold in the US is same Chinese parts, but imported by seller instead of me - so it gets more expensive as well.
I don't think this will give big advantage to US shops, it will mostly be extra expenses for consumers.
gruez · 6h ago
>A lot of the stuff I am buying in China (electronic components and modules)
Surely you must realize that's a very atypical use case and is dwarfed by people buying cheap clothes and trinkets? Just go to aliexpress or temu right now and see what the items on the front page are. It's not niche components that you can only order from china, it's the same cheap shit you can order off amazon or buy at a local discount retailer.
withinboredom · 6h ago
No. The US gave it to Walmart instead; local retailers were fucked decades ago.
gruez · 6h ago
That's why I said "brick and mortar retailers", not "locally owned". Moreover despite whatever misgivings you have about walmart's business practices, they at least have more attachment to the local economy than a random e-store shipping out of shenzhen.
withinboredom · 5h ago
I don’t have any misgivings. I just read the news.
scotty79 · 6h ago
That depends on how inefficiently substitute item is made. It's entirely possible that making a thing domestically will produce more CO2 than making it far away and shipping it.
Americans are rich and will buy wastefully made expensive item if cheaper alternative is not available.
cosmicgadget · 4h ago
If they are paying more maybe they'll just buy the "efficiently-made" imported product that has been bulk shipped and tariffed?
ajross · 6h ago
It's only a win if it's replaced with lower-energy domestic alternatives, though. (Which, needlessly to say, don't remotely exist in almost all cases.) If your argument is that we just don't buy it at all, that's just cheering for economic contraction. I don't think you've thought things through if so.
People think that this just means that their nieces will stop buying junky fast fashion or whatever but that their own clean aescetic lifestyle will be unimpacted. But, no, that avocado toast is bankrolled by your employer and IRA and investment accounts or whatever, none of which are prepared for a 10% GDP contraction (or whatever) because the rubes can't buy their skorts anymore.
Economies are boats. We all sink or swim together.
watwut · 6h ago
Environmental point of view would welcome wind electricity and generally pretty much any other administration
brookst · 6h ago
That’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 · 6h ago
That is true but environmental impact is minimal and likelihood that it is genuin care about environmental even smaller.
brookst · 6h ago
True, 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 · 6h ago
The 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.
cosmicgadget · 4h ago
How is shipping huge volumes of cheap plastic and single-use items a "made up environmental concern"?
bananapub · 7h ago
fascinating 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.
Good 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 · 6h ago
Royal 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.
linuxftw · 6h ago
Customarily 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.
IAmGraydon · 6h ago
It’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.
No comments yet
ReptileMan · 6h ago
In 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.
sleepyguy · 6h ago
The 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 · 6h 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 · 6h ago
Because then you will order from Kyrgyzstan. The same way EU trade with Kyrgyzstan jumped like 100 fold after the sanctions against Russia.
sleepyguy · 6h ago
No, 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-$250 plus administrative fees from the carrier.
AnonC · 5h ago
This (targeted deminimis removal for China alone) is a difficult problem to solve reliably and complex. As seen with Nvidia chips or other products with export controls, in this case sellers will find a way to buy from China and route it through other countries to benefit from the exemption. In the end, sales by China may not be dented as much as one may believe it to be.
I understand your point that removing it for all is a blunt instrument and causes different problems and harms. Hopefully some policy adjustments are made with some trade offs.
ReptileMan · 6h ago
Usually taxes are percentage of the value of the import. Where do you get those 250$?
> 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.
sleepyguy · 5h ago
>Usually taxes are percentage of the value of the import. Where do you get those 250$
If the sending country doesn't collect customs duties for the US, then the US will place a flat fee of $250 on the item regardless of its value.
>From EU it never made sense to buy anything from small US business, with the absurd shipping costs and VAT.
Perhaps in your case, but some products are specialized or of much higher quality than can be found in the USA.
nemo44x · 6h ago
The 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 · 6h ago
Trade 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 · 6h ago
Temu pays vat and import duties in EU.
nemo44x · 4h ago
No they don’t. But they will soon.
insane_dreamer · 5h ago
This 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.
LightBug1 · 6h ago
New Temu marketing to US Customers: "Shop like a hundred-aire !!!"
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-pr...
1: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/rein...
see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45074362
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.
The current economic direction is not a consensus. The Western democracies are increasingly politically polarized and economically volatile.
Between the many different crises (unaffordable real estate, populational collapse, unsustainable environmental practices and global warming, increasing inequality, hollowing out of small and medium sized cities, and the list goes on), it is very difficult to justify the status quo.
You can estimate the impact objectively, but not whether that impact is good or bad.
A fundamental aspect of science is rigor. And a fundamental aspect of democracy is opposition.
Bold to hold contempt for free-market capitalism, when it's made your society so staggeringly wealthy, your concern of the day is literally worrying about landfills filling up with surplus wealth. Find some perspective.
Wouldn't I just get better value from an independent review mechanism?
when the differences don't matter or are things you areenot aware of this is more important.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/de-minimis-u-s-canada-endin...
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-ec...
Trump hates China. His boss told him to.
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.
the U.S. launched the trade war against Canada, “their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense.”
I think the thing some Americans mess themselves up with is thinking that the world perceives their domestic politics the same way they do. From our level of abstraction, America voted and Americans decided the country is going to be an anti-science, protectionist menace.
Protect yourself. If and when we have enough good governance to be friends again, we'll need your friendship.
The petty child-like name calling from the American president was mostly just an evocation of “I’m embarrassed for you.”
> what's your carbon footprint?! You fly around in jets 3 times a year?!
> let's buy 30c disposable crap from across the world while essentially subsidizing advanced industrialization of societies completely disconnected from our own
Trump's policies are big on tough talk while actually having the opposite effects of the marketing. High import taxes hurt the pre-imported selection available from domestic retailers, as sellers have to pay the tax ahead of the sale and navigate the uncertainty that the rates might change in the future. Whereas direct-from-China goods already have cash in hand to pay the tariffs, and the only uncertainty is in the few days between purchase and arrival at customs. I expect to be buying many more things direct from Aliexpress, as the tariffs set in, domestic inventory is exhausted, and domestic-seller prices creep upwards.
Furthermore, the high tariffs on China do encourage investments in factories. Specifically, Chinese investment in factories outside of China, for final assembly of products. Investing in the United States would not be prudent, with the environment of political instability. So these policies are effectively strengthening China's relationships with other countries.
Never mind that many of the companies still known for manufacturing quality goods do so in other western countries. If the goal was really to oppose China, then it should have been time to pull together with our allies - not to levy import taxes to keep them (price-) uncompetitive with Chinese products, while alienating them with hostile rhetoric. Ultimately, our adversaries couldn't have dreamed of more favorable policies.
Obviously the main problem is that tariffs do not lead to positive future outcomes for the country levying them.
The environment cost is higher with the middleman "small business" because they need their own logistics (likely Amazon). So instead of a carrier driving from the boat to USPS/OnTrac, it goes into the warehouses at Amazon. Wow! Thanks! World saved! In the eloquent words of our dear leader: SAD!
In any event, volumewise I presume Ali does more environmental damage than hobby electronics being shipped through Amazon.
No comments yet
[1] https://copenhageneconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/S...
[2] https://www.postnord.dk/siteassets/pdf/forretningsbetingelse...
If you import goods into this country at below the threshold, you are very likely to pay more than the original price of the good itself. That's the truth. There is de minimis in name only.
There is a reason shipping stopped.
US consumers have long enjoyed the privilege of actual de minimis, that is straight to their door, no fuss, no additional fees goods below the threshold.
It's easy to be snobbish about "low quality crap" from Shein etc if you have the money and preference to buy better, but for many people cheap stuff from China, whether bought in Walmart or online, is a godsend.
In terms of jobs and American manufacturers, there is zero demand for clothing sweatshop jobs in America, just as you don't see Americans lining up to replace illegals for low wage crop picking jobs.
All this is doing is making things more expensive for consumers. It's a consumer tax paid for by those who can least afford it.
I don't think this will give big advantage to US shops, it will mostly be extra expenses for consumers.
Surely you must realize that's a very atypical use case and is dwarfed by people buying cheap clothes and trinkets? Just go to aliexpress or temu right now and see what the items on the front page are. It's not niche components that you can only order from china, it's the same cheap shit you can order off amazon or buy at a local discount retailer.
Americans are rich and will buy wastefully made expensive item if cheaper alternative is not available.
People think that this just means that their nieces will stop buying junky fast fashion or whatever but that their own clean aescetic lifestyle will be unimpacted. But, no, that avocado toast is bankrolled by your employer and IRA and investment accounts or whatever, none of which are prepared for a 10% GDP contraction (or whatever) because the rubes can't buy their skorts anymore.
Economies are boats. We all sink or swim together.
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.
> “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-suspens...
> They cite ambiguity about what kind of goods are covered by the new rules, and the lack of time to process their implications.
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.
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.
No comments yet
The US Deminimis seemed quite generous. No wonder it is removed.
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?
It’s not China but businesses. Mostly Chinese businesses but it’s still a lot of individual companies that utilize it.
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.
I understand your point that removing it for all is a blunt instrument and causes different problems and harms. Hopefully some policy adjustments are made with some trade offs.
> 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.
If the sending country doesn't collect customs duties for the US, then the US will place a flat fee of $250 on the item regardless of its value.
>From EU it never made sense to buy anything from small US business, with the absurd shipping costs and VAT.
Perhaps in your case, but some products are specialized or of much higher quality than can be found in the USA.