The Biden administration has proposed rules that could make it more costly for Chinese e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu to ship goods into the US.
In his announcement proposing to crack down on “unsafe, unfairly traded products,” President Joe Biden accused China-founded e-commerce platforms selling cheap goods of abusing the “de minimis exemption” that makes shipments valued under $800 duty-free.
Platforms taking advantage of the exemption can share less information on packages and dodge taxes. Biden warned that “over the last 10 years, the number of shipments entering the United States claiming the de minimis exemption has increased significantly, from approximately 140 million a year to over 1 billion a year.” And the “majority of shipments entering the United States claiming the de minimis exemption originate from several China-founded e-commerce platforms,” Biden said.
Wierd to claim de minimus is being ‘abused’ when simply more people are using it. It’s not as if people ordering from Shien are breaking up their orders to ship in packages less than 800 dollars, they’re just not spending that much on a single order of clothing.
It’s a bit more nuanced than that. The article doesn’t talk about it, but this NYT article touches on how these Chinese sites are exploiting the de minimis exemption loophole to circumvent US anti-forced labor law, which companies have to comply with to keep their supply chain free of slave labor (Uyghurs in Xinjiang for example):
Lawmakers are flagging what they say are likely significant violations of U.S. law by Temu, a popular Chinese shopping platform, accusing it of providing an unchecked channel that allows goods made with forced labor to flow into the United States.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/business/economy/shein-temu-forced-labor-china.html
I think the assertion is that it’s intended for actual low volume low value trade, and that a retailer operating in the US but packaging the shipments in China (to bypass the normal import laws that apply to companies operating traditionally and importing in bulk, then packaging here) is not how the exception is intended to be used.
Sounds good. I was fooled by Temu, but I stopped using it when I found out what a privacy nightmare it is.
Im curious about the circumstances that fooled you into using Temu? All I ever saw were AI ad readings with wildly price slashed items that screamed “scam” at me
Oh it screamed scam to me as well, but I was lured in but the promise of gorgeous looking products for stupidly low prices, so I thought it would be ok to test it out just once. Even after I received my first order and some things were clearly serving no purpose in the world other than filling the trash can, enough items were actually pretty good to warrant going back for more.
I am more concerned by China heavily subsidizing epacket mail.
Well I already knew that timu sold scammy garbage come up but I’ve never heard of this other Shein one. I take it they also sell shitty trash?
American company becomes unaffordable.
Consumers seek out alternatives.
Smaller operations grow.
Govt must stop smaller competitors. Actively sabotages their business.
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