US Postal Service suspends parcel shipments from China after Trump’s extra 10% tariff

The US Postal Service (USPS) has introduced a short lived suspension of parcels from China and Hong Kong following President Donald Trump’s imposition of a further 10% tariff on Chinese language items efficient Tuesday.

This loophole has been utilized by retailers resembling Temu and Shein to ship low-value packages to the U.S. with out incurring duties.

The Trump administration has applied a further 10% tariff on Chinese language items efficient Tuesday and has moved to remove the “de minimis” loophole, which allows importers and U.S. customers to keep away from paying tariffs on packages valued below $800.

USPS clarified that this transformation wouldn’t have an effect on the stream of letters and ‘flats’ from China and Hong Kong. Nonetheless, they didn’t affirm if this suspension is instantly associated to the administration’s transfer to finish de minimis shipments from China and different nations.

Retailers like fast-fashion large Shein and on-line dollar-store Temu, which promote a wide selection of merchandise from toys to smartphones, have skilled vital progress within the U.S., partly as a result of de minimis exemption.

Chelsey Tam, Senior Fairness Analyst at Morningstar, remarked, “In our view, the USPS would require a while to find out how you can implement the brand new tariffs earlier than Chinese language packages can resume arriving within the U.S. This presents a major problem given the 4 million de minimis packages per day in 2024, making it troublesome to examine all packages promptly.” 

President Trump imposed the extra tariff on Chinese language items following repeated warnings to Beijing concerning its inadequate efforts to cease the stream of fentanyl, a harmful artificial opioid, into the U.S.