NEW YORK聽–聽A bipartisan group of US聽lawmakers planned to introduce a bill on Wednesday to eliminate a聽tariff聽exemption聽widely聽used by e-commerce聽sellers to send orders from聽China聽to US shoppers, one of the sponsors said.
The exception, known as the de minimis rule, exempts imports valued at $800 or less from tariffs if the items are shipped to individual consumers. The bill would ban such shipments from China immediately upon enactment, sponsor Republican Senator Bill Cassidy said.
Ecommerce聽sellers such as聽China-founded, Singapore-based Shein and Temu,聽聽owned by PDD Holdings Inc.聽that operates the Chinese ecommerce聽site Pinduoduo, are big beneficiaries of the聽exemption. A federal brief in April said the companies 鈥渆xploit鈥 de minimis to avoid duties and import illegal items such as those made in聽China’s Xingiang region with forced Uyghur labor.
A Shein spokesperson said Tuesday the company has no manufacturers in Xinjiang. Temu did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
De minimis聽shipments聽have drawn attention at least since 2019, when the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported it struggled to catch unsafe imports because of the heavy volume of low-value packages. Such聽shipments聽rose to 685.5 million in 2022 compared with 410.5 million in 2018, US customs data showed.
The bill鈥檚 other sponsors are Republican Senator J.D. Vance and Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin. It was unclear how much traction the proposal would gain. A separate but similar bill by Democratic Representative Earl Blumenauer failed to pass Congress last year.
Under聽the bill, countries other than聽China聽and Russia could keep the聽exemption聽by adopting the $800 threshold for their own聽tariff-free imports. The bill聽would聽only allow private shippers like FedEx, UPS聽and DHL to transport de minimis packages and exclude postal services. – Reuters
