US Targets Trade Loophole Used by Ecommerce Groups Temu and Shein
14th September 2024
‘Loophole’ is Crust-speak for ‘Do what I want, not what I say’.
The Biden administration is moving to close a trade loophole used by platforms like Temu, Shein and AliExpress to flood the US with cheap Chinese products.
The China-founded ecommerce groups have supercharged their growth by shipping cheap packages direct to American consumers by air and claiming what is known as the de minimis exemption to skip paying import tariffs on the shipments.
But the White House on Friday proposed new rules that would exclude a wide array of goods from being able to claim the exemptions, which extends to shipments of less than $800 in value. The proposed regulations will also make claiming duty free status more complex.
If you try to follow the rules, they will change the rules on you, which means that there actually are no rules, just the will of our lords and masters.
The difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is that a dictator’s whims have limits.