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US President Donald Trump has temporarily paused measures to close a tariff exemption on low-cost shipments from China while officials figure out how to tax the millions of packages that arrive in the US every day.
In an amendment to an executive order signed on Wednesday and published on Friday, the White House said the so-called de minimis provision — which exempts shipments under $800 in value from tariffs and rigorous customs checks — would remain in place until “adequate systems are in place to fully and expediently process and collect tariff revenue”.
Trump had cancelled the exemption in an executive order last week that imposed an additional 10 per cent tariff on goods from China, which the White House said was aimed at punishing Beijing for allowing the flow of deadly opioid fentanyl into the US. The rest of the tariffs remain in effect.
China retaliated days later, announcing tariffs of 10 to 15 per cent on US liquefied natural gas, coal, crude oil and farm equipment, which are due to take effect from Monday.
Trump said on Tuesday that he was in “no rush” to talk to his Chinese counterpart.
The de minimis provision was designed to help US households and small businesses purchase low-cost items from abroad without making them subject to onerous customs checks. In recent years, it has proved a boon to ecommerce platforms that ship directly to consumers, such as China’s Shein and Temu.
But had analysts warned that the move to cancel the exemption, which came into effect just days after it was announced, would force customs officials to apply the more complicated formal entry process to every package arriving from China.
The US Customs and Border Protection estimates that it processes more than 4mn low-value shipments daily. A congressional select committee report in 2023 estimated that about 30 per cent of those packages came from Temu and Shein.
The move would also make parcels formerly qualifying for de minimis subject not only to the additional 10 per cent tariff but also to existing trade levies, according to experts.
The US Postal Service on Tuesday suspended receipt of packages from China, including Hong Kong, before backtracking one day later to accept shipments. USPS said it was working with customs officials to establish an “efficient collection mechanism”, as the rapid implementation of the directive increased workloads for customs officials and stoked turmoil for exporters and freight carriers.
Chinese ecommerce sellers also said this week that some logistics groups were charging them withholding fees to cover the levies and other customs costs.
US officials have long had the de minimis rules in their sights. Domestic retailers that purchase items from overseas in bulk have complained that the exemption gave Chinese ecommerce groups an unfair cost advantage.
Former US president Joe Biden’s administration had proposed measures to tighten rules concerning the de minimis regime.
A report from analysts at Nomura, the Japanese investment bank, estimated that China shipped $46bn worth of packages to the US under de minimis rules in 2024, and that scrapping the exemptions could knock 0.2 percentage points off Chinese economic growth in 2025.
