The U.S. administration is cracking down on cheap products sold out of China by companies such as Temu and Shein by saying that companies are no longer exempt from tariffs simply by shipping goods that they claim to be worth less than $800.

U.S. President Joe Biden would no longer exclude these “de minimis” imports from tariffs under a proposed rule released Friday to tax all imports if they’re covered under Sections 201 or 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, or Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.

Importers mainly from China have used the de minimis exemption for shipments of $800 or less to flood the U.S. market. The number of these shipments has jumped from 140 million annually to over 1 billion a year, according to a White House statement.

The action comes at a delicate moment for the world’s two largest economies. The United States has tried to lessen its reliance on Chinese products, protect emerging industries such as electric vehicles from Chinese competition and restrict China’s access to advanced computer chips. For its part, China has seen manufacturing and exports as essential for driving economic growth as it has struggled with deflation following pandemic-related lockdowns.

  • TheAlbatross
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    5 days ago

    Buddy if I buy Panther Marten lures off Ali Express or from Dicks they come from the same factory in the same packaging at the same quality, but one costs $1.12 and the other $7.99.

    It’s being manufactured in China anyway, I’m just avoiding the beak wetting Dicks and Walmart do to pay their shareholders.

    Plus it ain’t like the US actually has any qualms with slave labor, just look at all the industries that take advantage of prison labor in the States.

    • tardigrada@beehaw.orgOP
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      5 days ago

      This is why we need supply chain transparency and this game is over, buddy, and among the weakest points in this context is China.

      • Sonori@beehaw.org
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        5 days ago

        I mean the transparency available in the US still hasn’t resulted in an end the same system of minority prison labor here at home.

          • Sonori@beehaw.org
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            4 days ago

            I’m not the one who said making China’s suppply chains as transparent as the US’s would end the system of using minorities as prison labor in Xinjiang, just the one who pointed out that the implementation of said transparency here on the same problem has not lead to the end of said practice.