May 2 (UPI) — An exemption from tariffs on Chinese goods expired Friday, likely leading to higher prices for goods from low-cost Chinese sellers.
The so-called de minimis exemption allowed items that come from sites like Temu, AliExpress and Shein worth less that $800 to be shipped into the United States duty-free, and to mostly skip inspections and paperwork.
The rule expired at 12:01 a.m. EDT Friday, leaving arriers like DHL, UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service, to deal with the change with baseline levies as high as 145%, and prices for consumers that have more than doubled.
The Trump administration announced the tariffs on April 2, and said that the goal is to target “deceptive shipping practices by Chinese-based shippers” who allegedly hide illicit substances in items that arrived into the United States under the de minimis exemption.
More than 80% of e-commerce shipments to the United States in 2022 were de minimis purchases and came from China, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported it had processed around four million duty-free de minimis shipments daily. There were about 1.36 billion packages delivered to the United States over the past fiscal year that were covered by the exemption, and around 48% of de minimis items had been shipped to the poorest zip codes, while 22% went to the richest ones.
The new tariffs will also likely slow down the shipping process as importers of the cheaper products from China will now need to fill out information on each item, such as its point of origin and contents.
Purchases shipped from China via FedEx, DHL and UPS are subject to at least a 145% tariff, as well as any item-specific levies. USPS is only subject to a baseline 120% tariff, or a flat $100 per postal item, that is until June 1, when that flat fee with be doubled to $200.
