Days after President Trump signed an executive order ending a popular "loophole" used by Chinese companies including Temu and Shein to keep prices ultra-low, the United States Postal Service announced Tuesday that it has temporarily stopped accepting parcels from China and Hong Kong. The "de minimis" exemption is a longstanding rule allowing packages worth less than $800 to be shipped into the US by anyone, including exporters, with no duties and without being required to undergo inspections, CNN reports. About 3 million parcels a day come into the US under those terms, most of them from China, the New York Times reports.
Trump's executive order, however, took effect Tuesday and ended the exemption. The order requires incoming packages to be labeled with details on the contents and the appropriate tariff code, and to include payment of the applicable tariffs. Other delivery companies including FedEx, DHL, and UPS have not yet commented on their plans; CNBC reports that USPS makes about 31% of last-mile deliveries on cross-border commerce. (The postal service did not explicitly link its decision to Trump's order.) Lawmakers have criticized the de minimis exception as giving China an unfair advantage, and trade officials have raised concerns about the lack of inspections for such packages, but Trump's move and the USPS decision are likely to raise prices for consumers, analysts say. (More US Postal Service stories.)
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