Supply Chain Digest Says...
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| The rise of ecommerce and the influx of low-value packages that it spawned led Congress in 2016 to raise the de minimis threshold from $200 to $800 to reduce the demand placed on import resources at the Postal Service. |
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In an abrupt reversal, the US Postal Service announced Wednesday that it would restart the acceptance of incoming mail and packages from China and Hong Kong, just hours after it suspended service from those regions.
“The USPS and Customs and Border Protection are working closely together to implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery,” the postal service said in a post on its website, with the change effective immediately.
According to CNBC, USPS announced late Tuesday it would stop accepting parcels from China and Hong Kong Posts “until further notice,” after the Trump administration imposed an additional 10% tariff on imported Chinese goods on Saturday.
In a related move, Trump also closed a nearly century-old trade loophole, termed “de minimis,” which allows exporters to ship packages worth less than $800 into the US duty-free if headed direct to customers.
CNBC also reported the suspension of de minimis is widely expected to impact new-age Chinese ecommerce companies Temu and Shein. The two low cost etailers have relied on de minimis rules to get goods into the US without duties and tariffs, based on huge numbers of small orders.
According to CNBC, the US Customs and Border Protection agency says it processed more than 1.3 billion de minimis shipments in 2024. A 2023 report from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party found that Temu and Shein are “likely responsible” for more than 30% of de minimis shipments into the U.S., and “likely nearly half” of all de minimis shipments originating from China.
Temu and Shein for now at least will have to deal with charges for many of their exports to US customers.
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 The rise of ecommerce and the influx of low-value packages that it spawned led Congress in 2016 to raise the de minimis threshold from $200 to $800 to reduce the demand placed on import resources at the Postal Service and US customs. That caused the number of parcels shipped as such into the US to explode, and Temu and Shein to grow along with it.
The brief service stoppage by the USPS wouldn’t affect shipments handled by UPS, FedEx or DHL, which operate their own flights from China for companies such as Apple that ship goods into the US.
Parcels from China that used to qualify for the de minimis exemption are now subject to tariffs imposed during Trump’s first administration and largely kept in place during Biden’s term. They also are subject to an additional 10% tariff on all imports from China announced last weekend by the Trump administration that went into effect on Tuesday.
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