The U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday announced the reversal of its ban on small value packages from China.
The ban lasted just one day and came as a result of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which ended a loophole allowing packages valued at less than $800 to avoid taxes.
Major companies like Temu and Shein had used this loophole to ship billions of dollars worth of product to the U.S. directly to consumers and thus avoid paying the tax.
Trump’s executive order placing a 10% tariff on Chinese goods includes goods previously covered by the loophole, called the de minimis exemption. Hundreds of millions of packages each year use this exemption.
“Effective February 5, 2025, the Postal Service will continue accepting all international inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong Posts,” USPS said in a statement Wednesday. “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.”
As The Center Square previously reported, the U.S. Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party during the Biden administration released a bipartisan report on this issue.
The 2023 report raised concerns about Chinese companies’ use of slave labor, avoidance of law enforcement scrutiny, and avoidance of American taxes using the de minimis exemption.
“Both Temu and Shein rely heavily on the de minimis exception to ship packages directly to U.S. consumers, allowing them to provide less robust data to CBP, avoid import duties, and minimize the likelihood that the packages will be screened for UFLPA compliance,” the report said.
Temu and Shein comprise roughly 30% of packages using the de minimis exemption.
“These initial and interim findings – which reveal Temu’s failure to maintain even the façade of a meaningful compliance program, and the true scale of both Shein and Temu’s use of the de minimis provision – raise serious concerns about the continued presence of products made with forced labor contaminating American imports. American consumers should know that there is an extremely high risk that Temu’s supply chains are contaminated with forced labor,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., and former Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallagher, who co-published the report, said in a joint statement when the report was released.
“And all companies operating in the United States have an obligation to clean up their supply chain and ensure that they are not contributing to the CCP’s genocide of the Uyghur people by facilitating the sale of goods made with forced labor,” the lawmakers continued.
